Mailah Jahn

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Patna School emerged in Bihar during the political conquest of the British East India Company and the fading power of the Nawab of Murshidabad. Artists, left without royal patronage, migrated to Patna which was a booming commercial centre where they found a market for their art among Europeans. Regarded as an offshoot of the Mughal Painting with a distinct influence of the Company painting style, the school dealt with common folks and their daily lifestyles. In this school, Sewak Ram was a famous painter who introduced a formal technique called 'Kajli Siyahi', where pictures were painted directly with a brush rather than creating outlines first. Ram painted his human figures with precision, with identifiable sharp noses, thick eyebrows, and deep-set eyes. His paintings have a sombre colour palette, influenced by European preferences, with sepia and ochre overtones, while clothing is depicted in whites and greys, with light and occasional colour. The above painting is one of the famous examples of the Patna School and Sewak Ram's expertise. Painted in gouache and graphite with gold on paper, it depicts a procession of common people with elephants carrying nobles, most likely a celebration. Such large-scale paintings were often collected by governor-generals of India, like Lord Minto and Lord Amherst.