In the Company Manner (2009), SDMA Gallery Rotation

"The mor-panki, a kind of pleasure boat, with the long neck and head of a peacock , most richly gilt and painted, and the snake-boats, used on days of festival, are fairy-like, pictureseque, fanciful, and very singular." - Fanny Parks, wife of a Writer for the East India Company who lived in India between 1822 and 1864, in her Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Serch of the Picturesque, 1850.

Sita Ram was an artist from the city of Murshidabad in eastern India. In 1814 and 1815 he accompanied his patron, Franciss Rawdon-Hastings (1754-1826) 2nd Earl of Moira, 1st Marquess of Hastings, who was the east India Company's Governor General of Bengal from 1813 to 1823, and his wife on a tour of cities along the Ganges River.
The artist created watercolor paintings in the European style of scenes that struck his patron's fancy. Although the pageantry of this scene implies that the Nawab was wealthy and grand, Hastings writes in his memoirs about the delapidated state of the palace, which revealed the local ruler's dire financial circumstances.

Sonya Quintanilla (2014) Quebec
Sita Ram
The Nawab of Murshidabad's boats on the Ganga
From the Hastings Album
India, 1814
Opaque watercolor on paper. 45.5 x 64 cm
Edwin Binney 3rd Collection, 1990.1376

The stream of English professional landscape artists who worked in India in the latter half of the eighteenth century introduced this type of painting to the subcontinent and to Indian artists. Sita Ram, an artist from Murshidabad, must have learned his craft from one of them. In 1814 and 1815, he accompanied his patron, Francis Rawdon-Hastings (1754–1826), 2nd Earl of Moira, 1st Marquess of Hastings, who was the East India Company's Governor General of Bengal from 1813 to 1823, and his wife on a tour of cities along the Ganges River. He painted a series of views as they made their way upstream.

Fanny Parks, a British writer who described life in India in 1836, records just such a scene in her book Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque: «The mor-panki, a kind of pleasure boat, with the long neck and head of a peacock, most richly gilt and painted, and the snake-boats, used on days of festival, are fairy-like, picturesque, fanciful, and very singular».

Sita Ram’s watercolor paintings make use of freely brushed strokes that show a distinct rejection of the Mughal style. Although the pageantry of this scene implies that the Nawab was wealthy and grand, Hastings writes in his memoirs about the dilapidated state of the palace, which revealed the local ruler's dire financial circumstances. The Nawab's bankrupt condition largely resulted from the reduction in tax revenues because of the reallocation of land ownership imposed by the British and payments due to the East India Company in exchange for military support against rival rulers.
Last Updated: 9/5/2017