Bhawani Das

Bhawani Das was an Indian painter active in the late 18th century and one of the leading figures of the Company School from Patna. Trained in the declining Mughal miniature tradition, he was among the artists brought to Calcutta to work for Sir Elijah Impey, chief justice of the East India Company's supreme court, and his wife Mary, who between roughly 1777 and 1782 commissioned hundreds of natural history studies for the album that bears their name. Bhawani Das produced detailed life-size watercolours of birds, animals, fish, and plants, combining fine Indian draughtsmanship with the lighter palette of English watercolour to serve European scientific documentation.