A group of twenty-eight watercolours of tradespeople, servants, bearers and other figures, some i...

A group of twenty-eight watercolours of tradespeople, servants, bearers and other figures, some inspired by works by John Gantz and Balthazar Solvyns Company School, South India, circa 1830-40 watercolours on watermarked paper, removed from the original album and laid down on to modern card, original handwritten English inscriptions also excised and laid down on the same card, loosely tipped into modern album the smallest 120 x 90 mm.; the largest 200 x 285 mm.; original album 287 x 230 mm.; modern album 29.5 x 38 cm. Footnotes: Provenance From an album formerly in the collection of Lord Bath, Longleat (two paintings bear the impressed seal marks BATH/THYNNE , and an image of a crown (nos. 6 and 11 below). Private UK collection. The subjects of the paintings are as follows: 1. Basket makers (watermark J Green & Son 1832 ). 2. A carriage drawn by bullocks (watermark J Green & Son 1832 ). 3. Bhishtis, 'or water carriers, who sell that article' (watermark J Green & Son 1832 ). 4. The state carriage of the Rajah of Tanjore, drawn by elephants. 5. A Parsee, 'an intelligent class of native, chiefly devoted to commerce. They were originally from Persia, and are fire-worshippers'. 6. Toddy-wallahs, 'or men who climb Coca-nut trees to obtain the juice therefrom called Toddy when slightly fermented'. 7. The fort on the rock at Trichinopoly. 8. A fakir: 'A wretched fanatic, who has taken a vow that he will never remove his arm from its present position. Taken from nature'. 9. A hookah bearer, 'a native servant whose exclusive duty is to attend to his master's hookah' (watermarked Whatman/Turkey Mill ). 10. Palanquin bearers 'in the act of travelling'. 11. 'Natives halting with their bullock carts, under a Banyan tree, to take their meal'. 12. Two men with a large pestle and mortar, turned by oxen, 'mode of expressing oil from coca-nuts'. 13. Men drawing water from tanks: 'A tank, or reservoir of water, with mode of drawing the latter from it. These tanks are used for irrigation' (watermark J Green & Son 1832 ). 14. A sepoy. 15. A mendicant, or perhaps a seller of cloth (no inscription). 16. A moonshee , 'or native teacher of languages', holding a book (watermark J Green & Son 1832 ). 17. A sepoy cavalry trooper, on his mount. 18. An Indian officer on horseback, 'not of the Company's service'. 19. A Moty-boy [?], 'a native servant in the act of waiting at dinner'. 20. A moonshee , seated in a chair with a book (watermark J Green & Son 1832 ). 21. An Indian merchant, perhaps a seller of cloth, or beads (no inscription). 22. 'A Peon, or Native Constable' (watermark J Green & Son 1832 ). 23. A fakir, holding a staff and begging cup. 24. 'A palanquin-bearer, fanning his master with a hand-punkah' (watermark J Green & Son 1832 ). 25. A tailor. 26. A seller of linen [?] 27. A private of sepoys, carrying a rifle. 28. A havildar , a sergeant of sepoys (watermark J Green & Son , date obscure). A fine group of varied figures studies by an Indian artist, several of them directly inspired by two European artists working in India: John Gantz and Balthazar Solvyns. Two in particular are almost exact copies after Solvyns: the hookah-bearer (9), and perhaps the seated tailor (25). Several are strongly reminiscent of scenes from John Gantz's Indian Microcosm , a volume of seventeen plates (coloured lithographs) of 1827 (basket-makers; carriage drawn by bullocks; bhishtis; the fort at Trichinopoly; carts under a banyan tree; pestle and mortar with coca-nuts; men drawing water from a tank; and the toddy-wallahs [?]). A larger group of paintings, with strikingly 'free and impressionistic' brushwork, seems to derive from a type tentatively attributed by Losty perhaps to Madras (though he admits there is nothing definite in this attribution), circa 1840-50. These are: the Parsee; the 'fanatic' fakir; the mendicant/seller of cloth; the moonshee; the moty-boy; the seated moonshee; the merchant (21); the Peon; the fakir holding a staff; and the bearer with a hand-punkah. This last figure, as well as the mendicant cloth-seller, appear in two almost identical paintings in the Tapi Collection, illustrated and discussed in J. P. Losty, Indian Life and People in the 19th Century: Company Paintings in the Tapi Collection , New Delhi 2019, p. 181, no. 46 (the latter described as a 'purveyor of skins'). John Gantz (1772-1853) and his son Justinian (1802-62), both probably Austrians, were employed as draughtsmen by the East India Company circa 1800-1803. There are maps, survey drawings and sketches of forts by the former, who was also described as an architect. For two watercolours by John Gantz, depicting temples near Madras, dated 1818 and 1822, see Christie's, Exploration and Travel, with Visions of India , 21st September 2000, lots 259 and 260. Balthazar Solvyns (1760-1824), who was from Antwerp, arrived in Calcutta in 1791. He did not find success in portrait-painting, but was encouraged by Sir William Jones, the 'Orientalist', to start work on a series which would become A Collection of Two Hundred and Fifty Coloured Etchings Descriptive of the Manners, Customs and Dress of the Hindoos . This was not a great success in itself, but had a good deal of influence on other European artists, and on Indian painters producing studies of Indian figures for British consumption - as here. See Christie's, Visions of India , 10th June 1997, lot 129, for an album of forty watercolours by a European artist after Solvyns (the illustration in the catalogue shows the same figure of the hookah bearer (no. 9 above). For the hookah-bearer once more, along with three other lots from Solvyns' series, see Christie's, Visions of India , 25th May 1995, lot 25, and 23, 24 and 26. A number of paintings have the watermark J Green & Son (handmade wove paper produced at Hayle Mill, Kent, from 1815 until its closure in 1987), and the date 1832. One painting (no. 9) has the watermark Whatman/Turkey Mill . The mill, also in Kent, was the largest papermill in Britain from the mid-18th Century. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com