Provenance: UK private collection, purchased from the art historian Toby Falk in 1975.

A highly detailed painting of turtle dove (Streptopelia sp.) perching on a branch, inscribed above with the English ‘Species of Dove…’ and below with ‘Cheetul Pundook’, a rough approximation of the species name in Hindi, चितरोख या चित्रपक्षपण्डुक (Chitarokh Pundook).[1] Turtle doves are a small bird in the family columbidae, most recognisable for the black and white barred collar patch. The bird has been painted with gouache on European cartridge paper, watermarked with a fleur-de-lys and the letters GR. Particularly fine brushwork can be observed under the chin and between the belly and tail of the dove, where a single hair has been used to create the illusion of ruffled feathers.

Company paintings were so-called because they were commissioned by employees of the British East India Company, documenting the new flora and fauna they encountered to send home to their loved ones.[2] The artists were local Indians, whose names have generally been lost in favour of the commissioning Company men. As the first capital of British India, Calcutta was one of the early production centres. Calcutta School avifauna paintings can be distinguished by the absence of background or shadows cast by the birds, as well as the great attention paid to the plumage. Artists were hired to paint the menageries and botanical gardens of wealthy patrons like Lord Impey, chief justice of the High Court, and the Marquess Wellesley, governor general.[3] This painting comes from an album of bird paintings commissioned by a wealthy British patron. Other pages, including studies of a swift in flight, a woodpecker, a grey-headed myna and an unidentified black bird, have been sold at auction over the past decade. The Calcutta School was, however, short lived, dwindling when photography was introduced to India in the early 1840s.

A similar composition, dated to the second half of the 18th century, is held in the Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata (no. R2609-80). It comes from an album commissioned by the naturalist John Fleming.

[1] With thanks to Ananya Sharma..

[2] Sardar, Marika. ‘Company Painting in Nineteenth-Century India.’ In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004.

[3] Ibid.