Six Recruits, folio from the Fraser Album

Six Recruits, folio from the Fraser Album is an early nineteenth-century Indian painting that forms part of a large collection of works created by the family of Ghulam Ali Khan, a prominent painter during the period of the transition from Mughal court patronage to the art market established by the British East India Company. The painting, which dates from c. 1815-16, shows six men being recruited for military service. It is part of the prestigious Fraser Album of paintings commissioned in relation to the experiences and interests of the Scottish brothers William Fraser and James Baillie Fraser in India. It is currently housed in the National Museum of Asian Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. The six figures are grouped together and the background is sparsely detailed. They are posed in frontally so that one can look at each of them separately, at their attire, weapons, and body features. They are not an anonymous, uniform group, although they share the pictorial space. The way males and females wear their clothes and the way they stand helps to tell one man apart from another. One of the figures is in a striking uniform, likely military, while the other figures are in various traditional attire, including turbans and wrapped clothing. Their weapons and accessories also convey their military roles. The background is minimalistic, allowing the men to stand out as the focal point of the image. This painting is a reflection of a major shift in the uses of Indian portraiture in the early nineteenth century. Mughal artists were proficient in depicting the personality, especially in the depiction of all the detail of faces, brushwork, and clothing. These were its established skills that were used to new topics and documentary interests under the Company patronage. British authorities commissioned photographs of soldiers, occupation, communities, architecture and landscapes documenting various aspects of the territories through which they operated. This painting is an amalgamation of Mughal art style and a more systematic portrayal of the people, for the purposes of a patron's documentation. The work is also of historical importance as it links the art-making to the process of military recruitment and colonial administration. Ghulam Ali Khan was hired by Colonel James Skinner to record the names of men who enlisted with his troops while he was fighting in the north of India. The painting is associated with William Fraser and his 'Fraser Album' project. The work thus gives a glimpse of the way Indian artists worked out their interaction with shifting systems of patronage while maintaining their technical skills in representing individual character. But it should be attributed to the family of Ghulam Ali Khan and not described as an unquestionably autograph work of the master himself as the Smithsonian wanted it to be.