This paper was prompted by the discovery of three dozen portrait drawings by an anonymous Indian artist in Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk market. Some portraits, drawn in black pen and ink on paper and dating from around 1830, are framed by a caption, written in Devanagari script, apparently describing prominent figures in the Mughal court, following the British conquest of Delhi (1803). The first section focuses on the translated script of the captions around the portraits and provides some historical context to identify the subjects portrayed. It focuses on who they are. It also situates the portraits in relation to ‘Company School’ painting, i.e. work by eighteenth-/early nineteenth-century Indian artists adjusting their styles to paint subjects appealing to British (and European) taste. Attention shifts to portraits of British officials, possibly including Sir David Ochterlony, first Resident at the Mughal Court, 1803–06, and again, 1818–22, and Charles Metcalfe, 1811–18. The paper draws attention to the ways in which the artist distinguishes between Asian and European subjects, simultaneously coming to terms with the challenges of representing unfamiliar European ethnicities. The drawings themselves – historically interesting and occasionally amusing – are unique in relation to what is generally understood as ‘Indian painting’.

中文翻译：

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可疑公司：在莫卧儿法院代表种族

这篇论文的灵感来自一位匿名的印度艺术家在旧德里的 Chandni Chowk 市场发现了三打肖像画。一些肖像画是用黑色钢笔和墨水在纸上绘制的，可追溯到 1830 年左右，带有用梵文书写的标题，显然描述了英国征服德里（1803 年）后莫卧儿宫廷中的杰出人物。第一部分侧重于肖像周围字幕的翻译脚本，并提供一些历史背景来确定所描绘的主题。它专注于他们是谁。它还将肖像置于与“公司派”绘画相关的位置，即十八世纪/十九世纪早期印度艺术家的作品，调整他们的风格以绘制吸引英国（和欧洲）品味的主题。注意力转移到英国官员的肖像上，可能包括 David Ochterlony 爵士，1803-06 年和 1818-22 年莫卧儿宫廷的第一任居民，以及查尔斯·梅特卡夫，1811-18 年。这篇论文提请注意艺术家区分亚洲和欧洲主题的方式，同时应对代表不熟悉的欧洲种族的挑战。这些画作本身——历史上很有趣，偶尔也很有趣——与通常被理解为“印度绘画”的东西相比是独一无二的。