Maid bringing a hookah to a lady (recto), from a Kalighat album
Unknown Artist
c. 1890
Medium
Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper
Dimensions
painting only: 45.8 × 27.5 cm · secondary support: 48.6 × 30.1 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward
Accession Number
2003.107.a
About this artwork
Kalighat paintings reflect the time and context in which they were created. Kalighat painters used their medium to offer penetrating and insightful critiques of British-influenced Indians as well as the British themselves through satires and caricatures. Newly rich Bengali native Indian clerks (babus) aspired to dress and behave like their British masters, and Kalighat painters taunted them for this. The maid, dressed in green, holds a hookah in her right hand. The lady in red is likely a fashio...