How the Indian everyman became a subject of art

An exhibition of Company paintings in Mumbai remind us of the dual purpose they served for their British patrons: ‘memorialisation and surveillance’.

Urmi Chanda-Vaz

· Jan 06, 2019 · 11:30 am

Photos: An Indian couple has built a collection of 4,500 Raj-era picture postcards

A part of Sangeeta and Ratnesh Mathur’s collection has been curated into the book ‘Picturesque India’.

Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri

· Dec 09, 2018 · 11:30 am

Photos: How ancient manuscripts have depicted the teachings of Gautam Buddha

Snapshots from the British Library’s ‘Buddhism Illuminated: Manuscript Art from Southeast Asia’.

San San May

 & 

Jana Igunma

· Nov 15, 2018 · 09:30 pm

How the British used postcards as a propaganda tool during the Bombay plague of 1896

In his coffee-table book, ‘Paper Jewels: Postcards from the Raj’, historian and collector Omar Khan documents how postcards became a window to world history.

Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri

· Sep 22, 2018 · 11:30 am

Photos: The American photographer who came to Calcutta during WWII and fell in love with the city

Clyde Waddell spent around two years in South Asia, but it was Calcutta that fascinated him.

Anu Kumar

· May 15, 2018 · 11:30 am

An Australian trainspotter’s images from the 1960s could rewrite steam engine history in India

Ian Manning shot photographs to document steam trains in India, and they languished for decades before being found, restored and recently exhibited.

Vinita Govindarajan

· May 08, 2018 · 11:30 am

Photos: When two 19th-century Sinhalese Buddhist monks travelled to England to join the Church

Adam Sri Munni Ratna and his cousin travelled to England from Sri Lanka after reading the New Testament and were baptised there.

Malini Roy

· Apr 20, 2018 · 09:30 pm

Rare manuscripts: A look at an illustrated Mughal copy of Nizami’s tragic romance ‘Layla Majnun’

The manuscript tells of the fateful romance between Layla and Qays who, driven to madness, took refuge in the desert with wild creatures.

Ursula Sims-Williams

· Mar 16, 2018 · 09:30 pm

For 18th century painters, Indian port cities Calcutta, Bombay and Madras held a very special place

Artists like William Hodges, Jan Van Ryne, William and Thomas Daniell travelled across the ports, painting what they loved.

Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri

· Oct 30, 2017 · 03:30 pm

Mackenzie’s messengers: A Raj-era painting shows how Indians helped the British map India

Colin Mackenzie, the first Surveyor General of India, relied heavily on the assistance of educated, multilingual Indians.

Jennifer Howes

· Oct 04, 2017 · 09:30 pm

These illustrations from the Judeo-Persian epic ‘Fath Nama’ are a work of art

These paintings form part of manuscripts that have been copied in Judeo-Persian, a language that is a combination of Persian, Hebrew and Aram

Ilana Tahan

· Sep 28, 2017 · 10:30 pm

Video: On Bhagat Singh’s birth anniversary, a scrutiny of his projection as a Sikh warrior

Political parties have appropriated Bhagat Singh as their own while completely ignoring his beliefs and writings.

Scroll Staff

· Sep 28, 2017 · 07:50 pm