An unbound Company School album of 77 watercolours, India, Kutch, mid-19th century

The illustrations in this album include depictions of local people from the region of Kutch in western Gujarat – princely rulers, soldiers, tradesmen, fakirs and wandering mendicants, musicians, snake charmers, opium eaters, farmers, women carrying water vessels. The only architectural view included in the group is of a royal cenotaph built in the eighteenth century for Rao Lakhpatji Jadeja (1717-60) in Bhuj, the capital city of Kutch. Almost all the subjects are identified by captions in English and a few in Hindi.

Reflecting the collecting tastes of the time, the subject matter of these watercolours follows an earlier tradition of Company School paintings which were being produced by local artists for their British patrons. These were popular themes of Company School paintings in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Similar illustrations were produced in large sets and bound in albums for European patrons.

The leather album cover bears the label of Edward Baxter, a London-based manufacturer and retailer of travelling bags, dressing cases, and wooden boxes and caddies, who is known to have held premises at 16 Cockspur Street from 1859-77. 

Another Company School album from Kutch with closely comparable subjects dated to circa 1850 sold at Bonhams, 12 October 2006, lot 339. A further album with illustrations on mica produced in South India circa 1850, formerly in the Edith & Stuart Cart Welch Collection sold at Sotheby’s London, 25 October 2023, lot 67. A large album produced in two volumes, depicting local Indian occupations, commissioned in the late eighteenth century in South India, sold more recently in these rooms, 29 October 2025, lot 232.