English Babu (Native Indian Clerk) Holding a Hookah

Cleveland Museum of Art

English Babu (Native Indian Clerk) Holding a Hookah

Date
c. 1890
Medium
Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper
Culture
Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Institution
Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID
162495

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

This is an archetypal satirical caricature of a native Indian clerk (babu), a Bengali dapper dandy whose fashion sense combines British and Indian mores with dissonant results. Imitating his British masters, he sits cross-legged on a Victorian chair, holding a hookah, sporting a Prince Albert hairstyle, and wearing European buckled shoes. His posture models popular photo studio portraits of the time. Kalighat painters ridiculed these vain babus as foppish nouveau riche.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line
Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward
Provenance
?–2003: William E. Ward [1922–2004], Solon, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art | 2003–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

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