A large Company School album of watercolours
of costumes, craftsmen, trades and processions in India providing a
fascinating insight into the culture of the early 1800s will go under
the hammer in LONDON next month and is expected to fetch anything between
200,000 and 300,000 pounds. This album is remarkable for the size,
quality and range of subjects of the watercolours, the auction house
said. It will be sold in Sotheby's Arts of the Islamic World sale on
April 24. In an era before cameras and photography, administrators,
officials and visitors to the East India Company would commission such
albums, painted by local Indian artists to bring back and show their
friends and relatives. Superior to the majority of similar related
productions of Company patronage, the album is remarkable for both its
size and quality, and also for its uncommon subject matter. Alongside
depictions of craftsmen, processions, dancers and contemporary costumes,
the album also contains a self- portrait showing the artist at work.
Among other characters illustrated are a fisherman, doctor, barber,
goldsmith, a dressing servant and dancing girls. All in all, the album
includes 35 large sheets bound in their original leather covers. The
album contains some interesting and rare portraits. The focus of the
album as well as its pictorial style is the southern and eastern regions
of India. A very similar album is in the India Office Collections in
the British Library here.
Stories by modern Hindi and Urdu literary
legend, Munshi Premchand are now available in comic format published by
Amar Chitra Katha. The comic books in Hindi detailing two stories by
the late literary phenomenon, is part of the publisher's contemporary
classics section, which began in 2012 with stories by author Ruskin
Bond. "We are launching the comics at the World Book Fair and it is our
tribute to Premchand. The idea is to make his stories familiar with
children," Reena Puri, Editor, Amar Chitra Katha told PTI. The stories
"Buddhi Kaki" (The old Aunt) and "Do Bail" (Two Oxen) have been scripted
and illustrated by Pratima Singh and Surendra Murthy. The English
version of the comics translated by Nandini Nair is also set for launch
within a few weeks, says Reena. The books are priced at Rs 50 each.
"Buddhi Kaki" first published in 1921 is the story of an old childless
widow who craves for love after she bequeaths her entir…
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