Black-hooded Oriole and Insect on Jackfruit Stump 1778
sheikhzainaldin
minneapolisinstituteofart
painting, watercolor
portrait
painting
asian-art
oil painting
watercolor
watercolour illustration
botanical art
miniature
watercolor
realism
"Black-hooded Oriole and Insect on Jackfruit Stump" is a watercolor painting by Sheikh Zain al-Din from 1778, currently held in the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The artwork depicts a vibrant black-hooded oriole perched on a branch of a jackfruit tree, its yellow plumage contrasting sharply against the green foliage. The detailed rendering of the bird and its surroundings, including the insect, showcases the artist's keen observation of nature, making it a valuable example of 18th-century Mughal bird and flower painting.
Comments
The famed ‘Impey Album,’ to which these 11 natural history studies originally belonged, marks the beginning of a new school in the canon of Indian Painting: that is “Company Painting’’—so called after the British East India Company, which by 1757 had taken effective rule over the sub-continent—spanning from c. 1760-1880 and distinguished by native painters adapting to the needs of Colonial tastes. The result was an emergence of a distinctive Anglo-Indian aesthetic, which we see in the remarkable paintings here. Between 1777-1783, Lady Mary Impey, wife of the recently appointed Chief Justice of Bengal, Sir Elijah Impey, commissioned three artists: a Muslim, Shaik Zain ud-Din, and two Hindus, Bhawani Das and Ram Das (all of whom trained in a Provincial Mughal atelier in the neighboring city of Patna) to record the newfound wonders of her Calcutta aviary and menagerie.
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