↗Japan, Edo period (1615–1868) · late 1790s
Cherry Blossoms in the Wind
Utagawa Toyokuni
Colour palette
#C9B48D#6A604F#D7C2A1#AD9C73#C3AC80#D3BC84
Approximate colour proportions
Estimated from six colour groups in the museum image, including visible paper or borders. Reproduction and lighting affect the result; these are image-area proportions, not pigment measurements.
Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward · The Cleveland Museum of Art
Image: public domain (CC0) · Museum record & image source ↗
Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat · c. 1890
English Babu (Native Indian Clerk) Holding a Hookah
Creator not recorded by the museum
- Date
- c. 1890
- Medium
- Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper
- Dimensions
- Secondary Support: 48 x 29.5 cm (18 7/8 x 11 5/8 in.); Painting only: 45.7 x 28 cm (18 x 11 in.)
- Country / context
- India
- Movement / tradition
- Kalighat painting · Source ↗
- Collection
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Pathway
- South Asian arts ↗
FROM THE MUSEUM
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.
Collection text · The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0A MOMENT TO LOOK
Start with what you can see: shapes, surface, colour and scale. How might the listed materials affect the way this object was made and experienced?
Looking prompt · an invitation to observe, not a historical interpretation.
