Company School Painting of a Chuckler. British India, ca. 1830-1850. Watercolour on paper, depicted standing, holding a pair of boots, wearing a dhoti, and paghri, identified in English below. Measurement: 22 x 18 cm. Frame: 56 x 40 cm. REFERENCE: Archer, M., Company Paintings: Indian Paintings of the British Period, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1992 Dallapiccola, A., South Indian Paintings: a Catalogue of the British Museum Collection, British Museum Press, London, 2010 Catalogue note: In India during the eighteenth century and during the nineteenth centuries, Europeans increasingly would commission and buy pictures by Indian artists. Many of these Europeans were British East India Company officials, and for that reason, these pictures are generally described as ‘Company School’ art. Loosely defined, ‘Company School’ art is a hybrid Indian-European style of depiction that developed in eighteenth and nineteenth-century India through this new form of patronage.