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A Crimson Horned Pheasant (Tragopan Satyra), from the Impey Album
Ram Das (Indian)
1778–1783
Medium/Technique
Pen and ink, watercolor with gum arabic
Dimensions
Height x width: 70.5 × 52.3 cm (27 3/4 × 20 9/16 in.)
Credit Line
Charles H. Bayley Picture and Painting Fund
Accession Number2022.195
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAsia
ClassificationsPaintings
In between the mid-1700s and the mid-1800s, India came almost entirely under the control of the British East India Company. Many artists who had previously worked for Indian patrons, in this period began to receive commissiones from officers of the East India Company and their families. The works they produced, often referred to as Company Paintings, bring together European and Indian aesthetics and artistic traditions. Among the most successful of all paintings made for the British in India are a set of paintings made for Sir Elijah and Mary, Lady Impey, in Calcutta (now Kolkata) between 1777 and 1783. The Impeys had a large menagerie and garden and they employed three Mughal-trained artists to paint studies of the plans and animals, including Ram Das. These artists produced at least 326 paintings on large pieces of English paper. The paintings synthesize European natural history painting and Indian aesthetics and techniques, and they bear inscriptions in Urdu and English of the name of the species represented, along with the signature of the artist and name of the patron.
InscriptionsNumbered ''24'' at upper left, inscribed at lower left ''In the Collection of Lady Impey at Calcutta/ Painted by (in nasta'liq script, Ram Das) Native of Patna'', further Urdu identification inscription in nasta'liq script at lower left ''muhnal'', later identified in pencil as ''Horned Turkey'' in the lower left margin of the mount. Muhnal is a word for pheasant.
Provenance1778/1782, made for Sir Elijah Impey (b. 1732 – d. 1809) and Lady Mary Reade Impey (b. 1749 – d. 1818), Kolkata and London; May 21, 1810, Impey estate sale, Phillips, London, probably unsold or bought back by the family and passed to Elijah Impey’s daughter-in-law, Sarah Proby Impey (b. 1776 – d. 1841), London; 1855, bequeathed by Sarah Impey through her nephew, Proby Cautley (b. 1802 – d. 1871) to the Linnean Society of London; June 10, 1963, Linnean Society sale, Sotheby’s, London, to Anthony Hobson (b. 1921 – d. 2014), London; June 10, 2015, Hobson sale, Christie’s, London, lot 61, to Carlton Rochell, New York; October 27, 2021, Carlton Rochell collection sale, Sotheby’s, London, lot 16, to the MFA. (Accession date: April 20, 2022)