A UK collector has donated a significant collection of 50 works by artists who lived and worked in India during the 18th and 19th centuries to the Tate in London. The collection, given by the UK art historian Charles Greig, includes works by Indian artists, such as Sita Ram and Ghulam Ali Khan, and European artists, including Johan Zoffany and Rudolf Swoboda, along with British figures such as Thomas Daniell and William Daniell.
The works throw light on a “period of profound cultural, social and political change brought about by British colonialism in South Asia” says a Tate statement. Key pieces donated include three watercolours by Sita Ram who was instrumental in creating works known as “Company paintings”, watercolours created in a European style for foreign patrons. The British Library in London has a large collection of watercolours by Ram.
Sita Ram, The Palace at Murshidabad from the River (around 1814-15) Presented by Charles Andrew Greig
Greig says in a statement: “Most of the works were made in the vanished world before photography and they provide us with a visual record of our rich shared history from about 1770. Assembling this collection has been my life’s primary passion, but at no stage did I ever see myself as other than a temporary steward.”
Asked why Greig opted for Tate, a spokesperson tells The Art Newspaper: “Tate has long held a few key paintings related to Anglo-Indian history of the period, including Zoffany’s Colonel Mordant’s Cock Match (around 1784) and Indian landscapes by Thomas Daniell and William Hodges”. Greig recently appeared in an episode of the television series Fake or Fortune?, in which he assessed a portrait of an Indian woman by the 18th-century Scottish artist Katherine Read.
A free display of the works drawn from the Greig collection is due to open at Tate Britain in 2028.
