Robert Shedden, H.E.I.C.S. before 1896

Curator: Here we have a page from what appears to be a sketchbook, bearing an image of Robert Shedden of the Honorable East India Company Service, created sometime before 1896. It’s rendered with ink, watercolor, and colored pencil on aged paper. Editor: There's a certain starkness to the portrait – an oval composition offset on the aged page. Something about it hints at colonial ambition and exploitation lurking behind that stoic gaze. Curator: Note the interplay between the handwritten text and the printed portrait, bound together within this personal sketchbook. The materiality speaks to the intersection of official records and individual artistic practice. One documenting power and legacy, the other trying to grasp it, to picture it. Editor: Exactly. And look closer; Robert Shedden of the HEICS—an organization directly implicated in imperial expansion and oppression. I see echoes of the systemic injustices enacted upon entire populations in this simple portrait. What did it cost, for him to have his image immortalized? Curator: Consider the materials at play. The paper, the inks—commodities sourced through global trade routes established and exploited by the same Company. And how the means of reproduction affects visibility. These images circulated among the elite, who was left out of this visual exchange? Editor: The academic style smooths over the rough edges of empire. It hides the labor, the land grabs, the cultural destruction that men like Shedden made possible, behind his serene gaze. What stories aren’t we being told here, by only showcasing the victors in a carefully curated colonial narrative? Curator: True, the sketch serves as both document and artifact, testifying to the complex processes of image production. This portrait is a means of social inscription. It also raises broader questions about the economics of representation and the cultural capital invested in preserving a particular vision of history. Editor: Precisely! By recognizing its cultural biases and gaps, we can look to what this page signifies: what and whose histories were prioritized during this time and what those choices meant, for generations. Curator: Viewing this aged sketchbook, we’ve touched upon art production and visual communication in this historical record, emphasizing the necessity of deconstructing those modes of seeing to unpack the past. Editor: Yes, remembering those most impacted and actively resisting narratives such as these—allows for more comprehensive understanding of cultural shifts.