English Babu (Native Indian Clerk) Holding a Hookah
1890
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1890
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
English Babu (Native Indian Clerk) Holding a Hookah is a 1890 unspecified by Unknown, a Patna School of Painting work, depicting Bengal, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A man in a striped suit sits stiffly on a chair, holding a long hookah pipe. His shoes are shiny and buckled, but his legs are crossed like he’s on the floor. The painting pokes fun at him. This is a Kalighat painting from Kolkata, where artists made quick, bold pictures to sell to ordinary people. They laughed at the "babus"—Indian clerks who copied British manners but looked silly doing it. The artist didn’t sign it, so we don’t know who made it. Look up more paintings under kalighat.
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.
Read the full account in the museum source.
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