Our Quarters Calcutta 1875

Curator: Look at this interior—a scene both intimate and unsettling. It is an ink drawing titled "Our Quarters Calcutta," made anonymously in 1875. Editor: Unsettling is right! It feels like a stage set, and not a very welcoming one. The perspective's a little off, maybe? It creates a fishbowl effect—claustrophobic despite the open windows. Curator: Indeed. The work provides a glimpse into a colonial domestic space in British India, though filtered, of course, through an anonymous European lens. The slightly awkward composition, the very careful detail in the furniture… Editor: ...versus the almost caricatured people. The fellow reading at the table seems swallowed by his chair, while the chap in the turban is posed stiffly as if waiting for the curtain to rise. It has elements of both observation and performance. It reflects both realities as observed, and assumptions. The image’s staging screams orientalism. Curator: Precisely. The careful depiction of luxury alongside what could be interpreted as an exaggerated depiction of local figures… We might ask what image the artist is trying to convey of their place in the world? Who exactly is invited into "our" quarters here? Editor: It also feels… lonely. The abundance of objects doesn't fill the emptiness, right? Is that supposed to evoke some comment about the experience of expats far from their ancestral homes? It evokes a strong sense of cultural alienation... Curator: Absolutely, and this tension plays out through details such as the covered piano, perhaps alluding to constrained cultural expression, set alongside those open windows beckoning a very controlled amount of fresh air and light, reflecting an environment carefully cultivated to one’s taste. The picture serves, too, as a window onto a very specific sociopolitical moment. Editor: The image whispers questions of power, belonging, and cultural appropriation, like whispers between scenes in some long-forgotten drama. Thank you for bringing that moment to life a bit more! Curator: Thank you. Seeing it this way provides, I hope, space for thinking about whose stories get told, and how we interpret domestic narratives embedded in grander histories.