Although we talk a lot today about tech giants and media behemoths, their presence in history is far from unprecedented.
Founded by Elizabeth I to give a bunch of London merchants the exclusive right to trade with the «East Indies,» the East India Company was, at its peak, «the largest corporation of its kind,» as Emily Erikson, a sociology professor at Yale University wrote in «Between Monopoly and Free Trade: The English East India Company.»
Through June 21, the Yale Center for British Art is presenting «Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750–1850.»
The East India Company «flooded England with affordable tea, cotton textiles and spices, and richly rewarded its London investors with returns as high as 30%,» according to History.com. It was enormous, stretching from trade with India through China, Persia and Indonesia for more than two centuries.
Gangaram Chintaman Navgire Tambat’s, «A Rhinoceros in the Peshwa’s Menagerie at Poona,» from 1790, in on exhibt at the Yale Center for British Art. (Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art)
Gangaram Chintaman Navgire Tambat’s, «A Rhinoceros in the Peshwa’s Menagerie at Poona,» from 1790, in on exhibt at the Yale Center for British Art. (Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art)
The Yale exhibit spans a century of artistic production, with an emphasis on revealing the material and technical innovations of Indian, Chinese and British artists whose work and lives were shaped by the British East India Company’s global reach, according to a news release. Featuring more than 100 objects, the exhibit highlights «the beauty and range of the extraordinary artwork produced within the context of one of the most powerful and ruthless corporations in history,» according to the release.
The British East India Company began in 1600 as a private trading enterprise but grew into a military and political force during the 18th and 19th centuries, according to the British Art Center’s website.
«It waged war to rule India and sell opium in China. To support its commercial and imperial goals, the Company encouraged its agents to commission art,» the site reads.
An unknown artist, was responsible for «Breadnut Artocarpus camansi,» created around 1825 and now on view at the Yale Center for British Art. (Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art)
An unknown artist, was responsible for «Breadnut Artocarpus camansi,» created around 1825 and now on view at the Yale Center for British Art. (Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art)
Because the artists represented in the exhibit trained in Indian courts as well as in Britain and China, the works shed light on the cultural transmission of techniques and materials. «As goods, people, and ideas circulated through the Company’s networks, artists experimented with papers, pigments and methods, adapting techniques from different traditions to develop a striking visual language that connected art to the expanding global economy,» according to the release. Among the objects on display is a 37-foot-long scroll that takes visitors on a journey through port cities and into the worlds of artists, according to the release.
Trivia Question
Elizabeth I reigned as queen for 45 years. Who succeeded her? For extra credit, three monarchs reigned after the death of Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII. Can you name them?
Bhawani Das, «A Great Indian Fruit Bat or Flying Fox Pteropus giganteus, » created between 1778 to 1782, is part of a new exhibit now on view at the Yale Center for British Art. (Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art)
Bhawani Das, «A Great Indian Fruit Bat or Flying Fox Pteropus giganteus, » created between 1778 to 1782, is part of a new exhibit now on view at the Yale Center for British Art. (Courtesy of Yale Center for British Art)
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The Irish Girl
Speaking of the Yale Center for British Art, The Washington Post’s Sebastian Smee, who won a Pulitzer Prize for art criticism when he was with the Boston Globe, recently singled out a work from the New Haven museum as «one of the glories of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven.»
The work was painted by Ford Madox Brown in 1860 while he was looking for subjects for his enormous work, «Work,» which is on view at the Manchester Art Gallery. Brown was a fascinating character. While he was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he was never an official member, according to The Art Story. And his paintings reflect that. The Pre-Raphaelites were drawn to medieval legends, Biblical stories, Dante, Shakespeare and — oh yes, beautiful, pouty women.Brown was more of a British social realist, though a good deal more radiant and meticulous than those from the Ash Can School, who were active in New York in the early 1900s. Call Brown a painterly version of Charles Dickens. Like Dickens, Brown was aware of the enormity of child labor in Victorian society. Unlike Dickens, he didn’t have a lot of sympathy for them, calling them «ragged dirty brats, who get in the way and make a noise,» according to the Manchester Art Gallery.
«Work» may ring a chord with Waterbury residents who have dealt with water main breaks this winter. It depicts a group of «navvies,» or construction workers, digging up a sewer in Hampstead, while flower-sellers and fashionable Victorian ladies navigate the crowded scene. Brown referred to the woman selling cornflowers as a «ragged wretch who has never been taught to work,» according to the gallery.
«The Irish Girl» is also selling cornflowers, which she proffers beneath her paisley red shawl. The painting was supposed to perform a pendant with «The English Boy,» in which Ford painted his far more nattily dressed son in a hat and smock holding his toys. Both the girl and the woman were likely Irish refugees, fleeing the famine.
The painting is on view in New Haven.
Trivia Answer
Elizabeth I was succeeded by her cousin, James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England in 1603, uniting the crowns of England and Scotland under a single monarch after Elizabeth died childless.
After Henry VIII’s death, the crown passed to his 9-year-old son, Edward VI. Here’s where succession gets confusing. Edward died and was followed for nine days in July by his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, «as part of an unsuccessful bid to prevent the accession of her Catholic cousin, Mary Tudor,» according to Historic Royal Palaces. She was soon imprisoned by her successor, Mary I and executed in 1554 at 17. That made her’s the shortest reign in English history.