Company style

also: Company painting · Company school

style c. 1770-1860 India South Asia

Company style (Company painting, Kampani kalam) is the Indo-British painting that developed from the mid-eighteenth century as Indian artists adapted their craft to patrons of the East India Company. Trained in the precision of Mughal and provincial miniature workshops, painters absorbed European naturalism - atmospheric landscape, cast shadow, linear perspective, portrait likeness - and applied it to new subjects: the trades and castes of India, flora and fauna, monuments and views, and the portraits of colonial officials. Watercolor on paper replaced the album page. Some patrons, like the Fraser brothers, employed local masters such as Ghulam Ali Khan directly, while British artists such as Thomas Daniell worked in the same orbit. The style flourished roughly from the 1770s to the 1850s, ending as photography and academic oil painting spread.

A group of courtesans in the 19th century, could be considered as a later form or evolved type of Gaṇikās , from the Vedic period .
A group of courtesans in the 19th century, could be considered as a later form or evolved type of Gaṇikās , from the Vedic period .Public domain (credit: Possibly Ghulam Ali Khan) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Mughal-miniature precision combined with European modeling and perspective
  • Naturalistic light, cast shadow and atmospheric landscape
  • Documentary subjects: castes and trades, plants, animals, monuments, portraits
  • Watercolor and gouache on paper, often assembled in albums
  • Hybridity: Indian brushwork answering colonial taste

Key figures

  • Ghulam Ali Khan (active c. 1815-1855) — Court painter whose naturalist figure studies served Company patrons
  • Sita Ram (active c. 1810-1830) — Painter of landscape albums for the Marquess of Hastings
  • Thomas Daniell (1749-1840) — British painter whose Indian views with nephew William shaped colonial taste

Example works

  • The Fraser Album — Ghulam Ali Khan and others (c. 1815-1819)
  • Oriental Scenery — Thomas and William Daniell (1795-1808)

Sources

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