Barber Cleaning a Woman’s Ear
1890
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1890
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Barber Cleaning a Woman’s Ear is a 1890 unspecified by Unknown, a Patna School of Painting work, depicting Bengal, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A barber leans over a woman, digging into her ear with long pins while she sits still in a bright sari. His turban holds extra tools, and his face is exaggerated—big nose, no chin. These paintings came from Kolkata in the 1800s. Artists poked fun at wealthy Indians who copied British manners, showing them as awkward or silly. The barber’s odd face and the woman’s stiff pose make the scene feel like a joke. Look up kalighat to see more of these sharp, colorful satires.
Kalighat paintings reflect the time and context in which they were created. Kalighat painters used their medium to offer penetrating and insightful critiques of British-influenced Indians as well as the British themselves through satires and caricatures. Newly rich Bengali native Indian clerks (babus) aspired to dress and behave like their British masters, and Kalighat painters taunted them for this. A chinless barber with cleaning pins tucked in his turban is cleaning the ears of a lady customer. A fashionable woman, she smokes a hookah and exposes one breast to her flirtatious barber. As…
Read the full account in the museum source.
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