{"id":2597,"date":"2015-07-30T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T14:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/?p=2597"},"modified":"2015-08-06T16:29:54","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T20:29:54","slug":"indian-subcontinent-in-60-engravings-or-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/2015\/07\/30\/indian-subcontinent-in-60-engravings-or-less\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian subcontinent in 60 engravings or less…."},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"KIC_Image_0002\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Frans Balthazar Solvyns was born in Antwerp in 1760 and for the early part of his career was a marine painter capturing the likenesses of ships, ports, and harbor views on canvas. \u00a0He departed for Calcutta in the 1790s where he then worked as a journeyman artist working for the upper-middle class restoring works of art, decorating carriages, and other pursuits.\u00a0 He traveled during this time throughout the Indian subcontinent and came up with the idea to create a series of etchings documenting the inhabitants. \u00a0The etchings covered professions, castes, typical dress, transportation, and festivals to name just a few. \u00a0The original etchings were published in 1796 in\u00a0A Collection of Two Hundred and Fifty Coloured Etchings: Descriptive of the Manners, Customs and Dresses of the Hindoos<\/i> in Calcutta. \u00a0It was a financial failure\u00a0probably due to artistic tastes of the time which were said to find the color of the etchings too somber and monotonous. \u00a0However they did appeal to the London publisher Edward Orne who published a pirated version without the permission of Solvyns. \u00a0Orne’s version was mainly dedicated to the costumes or modes of dress and the plates were redesigned in warmer colors. \u00a0Our particular volume is one of Orne’s pirated editions published in 1807 titled The costume of Hindostan, elucidated by sixty coloured engravings <\/a>with descriptions in English and<\/span> French, taken in the years 1798 and<\/span> 1799<\/a><\/span>. \u00a0Here are a few of the plates that I found particularly interesting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A Hooka-Burdar or Hooka Purveyor was\u00a0responsible for making the chillum, or pipe, keeping the hookah in order and attending the master whenever they were dining. \u00a0The hookah itself could be made in various materials and adorned according to the wealth of the owner. \u00a0Often it was covered\u00a0with precious jewels such as rubies, diamonds, or emeralds and the base was most commonly\u00a0made out of silver, gold, metal, or glass.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>A Syce or Groom was\u00a0described as being assigned to a single horse who would then run next to said horse and when they stopped he would\u00a0secure the horse’s head with his rope. \u00a0In his hand you will see a piece of horsehair that is attached to a piece of wood with which he would be tasked with preventing the flies from “fretting the horse.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

\"KIC_Image_0011\"<\/a>This woman’s status is simply identified as a Woman of Inferior Rank. \u00a0The description that goes with the plate reveals other details about women in general stating\u00a0that when a woman is widowed she is no longer allowed to wear colors on the border of her clothes nor ornaments, except for a necklace made of wooden beads, her head is shaved, and she becomes a virtual servant in her household. \u00a0According to the Hindoo laws she is unable to marry again and by subduing her passions and attraction she is reduced to a state of servility. \u00a0The author\u00a0helpfully reveals the difference for\u00a0European women by stating\u00a0“Happily this odious interdiction, and not less odious custom are unknown to the fair daughters of Europe, who are unrestrained in the exercise of their charms and are ever free to confer those blessings that constitute the happiness of men.<\/em>” \u00a0Since this particular plate has none of these characteristics as her dress has a color border, she is wearing jewelry, and head is not shaved, I have to conclude this is just a woman of inferior rank but not a widow.<\/p>\n

The costume of Hindostan, elucidated by sixty coloured engravings <\/a>with descriptions in English and<\/span> French, taken in the years 1798 and<\/span> 1799<\/a>. By Balt. Solvyns.<\/span> London, E. Orme, 1807.\u00a0 GT 1460.S6 1807 F can be found at the Fine Arts Library<\/a>. \u00a0<\/span><\/cite><\/p>\n

Thanks to Alison Ha<\/em>r<\/em>ris, Julio Mario <\/em>S<\/em>anto <\/em>Domingo Project Manager for\u00a0<\/em>contributing this post.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection. Frans Balthazar Solvyns was born in Antwerp in 1760 and for the early part of his career was a marine painter capturing the likenesses of ships, ports, and harbor views on canvas. \u00a0He departed for Calcutta […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4490,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[72743],"tags":[131816,131813,131820,131819,131818,1921,131815,131814,72720,131817],"class_list":["post-2597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fine-arts-library","tag-etchings","tag-frans-balt-solvyns","tag-hindoostan","tag-hooka","tag-hookah","tag-india","tag-indian-costume","tag-indian-dress","tag-julio-mario-santo-domingo-collection","tag-plates"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5TUly-FT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4490"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2597"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6218,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions\/6218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}