This is from Folio from a Series Commissioned by Lady Impey. It is now placed at Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Sheikh Zainuddin was an Indian painter from Patna. He was an artist from Patna who worked on the Impey natural history project in Calcutta, known for his masterful depictions of birds and botanical subjects. He lived in 1700s. He worked in Calcutta from 1777 to 1782.At that time British people came to India. Lady Mary Impey was wife of Chief Justice of Calcutta. She loved birds and plants. She made a big zoo and garden in her house. She called painters from Patna to paint her birds and plants. Sheikh Zainuddin was her main painter. He worked with two other painters Bhawani Das and Ram Das. This is called Impey Album. His painting style is called Company School. It is mix of Mughal style and English natural history style. He painted very clearly, with thin brush. He used watercolor on English paper. In this painting there is a yellow bird with black head. This is Black-hooded Oriole. It is sitting on a small branch of jackfruit tree. Near it there is a cut stump of jackfruit tree. The stump is brown and grey. There are some green leaves and a small green jackfruit hanging. On the left side there is a small insect also.The background is white. So we can see bird and plant clearly. He painted it by seeing real bird. Lady Impey had live birds. He looked at bird carefully and painted same size. He used very fine brush. He made feathers, leaves and bark very real. The style is scientific - like for study. In that time, English people wanted to know about Indian birds and plants. So Lady Impey told him to paint for record. This was before camera, so painting was the only way. This painting shows two things. First, it is a science record - what Oriole looks like, what jackfruit tree looks like. Second, it shows Indian artist skill. Even though it was for British, the painter made it with Indian Mughal fineness. The cut stump shows human life - tree cut for use. The bird on new branch shows nature still lives. The insect shows small details - he even painted small insects. The painting also reflects the colonial context in which it was produced. European officials and collectors were becoming increasingly interested in recording and collecting India's natural resources and knowledge. Indian artists were employed to produce detailed images that satisfied these interests. Therefore, the painting tells us not only about a bird or an insect but also about the changing relationship between Indian artists and European patrons during the period of British expansion.
Sheikh Zain al-Din's Black-hooded Oriole and Insect on Jackfruit Stump is both a scientific record and a celebration of the visual grandeur of nature. This 1778 painting was part of the Impey Album, a series of paintings that were commissioned by Lady Impey and made by Indian artists, on birds, animals, and plants. The accuracy of the images is striking.
This map is markedly simple: the colorful oriole appears against a light background, as do the jackfruit branch, jackfruit, leaves, stump, and inconspicuous insect. Zain al-Din seems to combine the highly detailed observation of Mughal paintings with the illustrative purpose of European natural-history illustration.
The painting could be read as the meeting between grace and intelligence, proposing that every aspect of nature is worthy of consideration, even the tiny fly in the background hidden against the wood. On the other hand, the cutting of the tree presents a further level of nuance: nature is being studied and listed, but also altered through human intervention. In a colonial setting this brings a subtle interplay of admiration and scientific interest, skill and the humans controls and seeks to categorise the natural environment.
