Paintings

Our collection highlights Company School paintings—a distinctive art style that emerged under the patronage of the European East India Companies during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These works blend traditional Indian techniques with European aesthetic preferences, especially in their use of perspective and naturalistic detail. In our selection, we feature six regional schools:

Murshidabad

Patna

Benaras

Awadh

Tanjore

Tiruchirappalli

Each of these artworks stand testimony to not just the artist’s skill but also how colonial visitors saw and imagined India, sometimes in ways that made it seem exotic and unfamiliar.