Indian mica painting, Patna or Murshidabad School, mid 19th century.

A very fine and unusual painting on mica, 159 x 128 mm showing a very senior British military officer seated in a pinnace. He appears through an open window, the rest green shuttered, dressed in scarlet shell jacket holding a long stemmed glass. Turbanned staff stand about the vessel, which is at rest off shore. This painting, of the highest quality, has been very well preserved in an album, dated 1854, and is virtually perfect with no restoration at all [a little discolouration to the top right corner of the mica, well away from the painted areas]. The painting is very different from the average mica paintings which often depict various trades, modes of transport and the like and were produced in large numbers. This has the appearance of a specially commissioned work the British figure could represent the album owner’s father who left India in the 1840s. The provenance [see below] suggests that this was almost certainly painted between 1840 and 1860. 

One of our illustrations shows a small ink drawing of a rather similar pinnace which was elsewhere in this album and could well have been the inspiration for the painting [this is not included in this sale]. jul21/1

Provenance: The picture came from an album which was put together by Jane Bayley Sherer, the wife of Lt Col George Moyle Sherer [1806 -1870, later Maj Gen Sir GM Sherer, KCSI] who was commanding the 74th Bengal Native infantry during the Mutiny. Jane was the daughter of Maj Gen Sir Joseph O’Halloran and some of the material in the album dates from the period when he was a very senior member of the Company’s service. Her son, |Major General Joseph Ford Sherer also served in the Mutiny and rose to be a general.