Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward · The Cleveland Museum of Art
Image: public domain (CC0) · Museum record & image source ↗

Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat · c. 1890

English Babu (Native Indian Clerk) Holding a Hookah

Creator not recorded by the museum

Date: c. 1890
Medium: Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper
Dimensions: Secondary Support: 48 x 29.5 cm (18 7/8 x 11 5/8 in.); Painting only: 45.7 x 28 cm (18 x 11 in.)
Country / context: India
Movement / tradition: Kalighat painting · Source ↗
Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art
Pathway: South Asian arts ↗

FROM THE MUSEUM

This is an archetypal satirical caricature of a native Indian clerk (babu), a Bengali dapper dandy whose fashion sense combines British and Indian mores with dissonant results. Imitating his British masters, he sits cross-legged on a Victorian chair, holding a hookah, sporting a Prince Albert hairstyle, and wearing European buckled shoes. His posture models popular photo studio portraits of the time. Kalighat painters ridiculed these vain babus as foppish nouveau riche.

Collection text · The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0

A MOMENT TO LOOK

Start with what you can see: shapes, surface, colour and scale. How might the listed materials affect the way this object was made and experienced?

Looking prompt · an invitation to observe, not a historical interpretation.

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