An Indo-French exhibition, drawn from the archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the city’s National Museum, opens a historical window into the linkages that existed between 1750-1850. By Sakshi Sharma
Le Jardin de Lorixa (The Garden of Orixa), a botanical treaty with paintings representing more than 740 plants from India some of which have been lost forever, remained unknown for almost two centuries until Kapil Raj identified it.
It is one of the many hitherto unseen exhibits which have come up for viewing at the exhibition — Rajas, Nawabs and Firangees, Treasures from the French and the Indian archives (1750-1850) drawn from the archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the city’s National Museum. It portrays the lives of 12 Indian rulers and French-speaking officers serving under them from 1750-1850. It also showcases never-seen-before manuscripts, paintings and artefacts that offer glimpses of the Indian court life, through the eyes of French-speaking officers.
In the first section, on display are portraits of 12 pairs of French officers, and the Indian rulers in whose court they served, covering Indian territory that lies in present-day region which stretches from Kerala to Punjab, through Bengal, Awadh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Pune, Hyderabad and Madurai.
Many of the paintings, especially those depicting court scenes, have a complex interplay of mirrors where the technique and style seem to represent the machinations and politics that are practised here.
One of the first paintings that the viewer encounters is that of French leader, Colonel Antoine-Louis Henri Polier, donning a mustard jacket and white gown, sporting a long moustache. A hookah is placed beside him as he watches a nautch in an open space. The setting makes one reminiscence the house or a palace of an Indian noble rather that of a Frenchman. Clearly both the cultures were in close contact and influencing each other as much, if not more, than happens in contemporary times.
However, one wonders where the idea of curating never-seen-before manuscripts and paintings emerge from. Curator Dr Samuel Berthet says, “The proposal came from Colonel Pillay to highlight the role of French speaking officers serving the Indian rulers. I then proposed to extend the theme to the cultural exchanges triggered by those officers.”
From there he got the idea to use this opportunity to reveal the Indian treasures in the French collections. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France has more than 3,000 manuscripts — 2,000 in Sanskrit and Prakrit from all over India and 1,000 in modern regional languages including 600 in Tamil. There are at least 50 painting albums which contain around 3,000 pieces from different regions and schools which were largely untapped by researchers.
“I spent innumerable hours consulting with researchers and scholars such as Jérôme Petit to compose the text. It was also important to understand what the images tell us about the Indo-French relationship of that time, and how it evolved,” he adds.
The second part shows a wide collection of Indian sacred texts preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Apart from the ones which centered around different aspects of Hinduism, the collection also has those related to Islam, Buddhism, Tantrism, Jainism and the ancient religion of the Parsis.
The exhibition’s third leg points towards the rich and complex theme of firangee paintings where the subjects are essentially French. It answers how foreigners projected themselves during their sojourn in the East, and how they were represented by indigenous miniature artists. There are paintings of French-speaking travellers such as François Malherbe, Manucci, Bernier or Tavernier too.
The show also displays European themes in Indian court paintings. This took place as many western images circulated in Indian court and local painters were inspired by them and adapted their works to these. There were also books on Indian culture (botany, history and numismatic) commissioned by French and painted by Indian artists for a French readership.
The display also spans Indian paintings representing Indian divinities and communities commissioned by French administrators to Indian painters of the Tanjore tradition.
Very little is known about the artists of these works. When asked if Samuel had met someone who recalls any incident related to any of the paintings he says, “Roger Faligot, a French writer came to me few years back for his research on François Malherbe, the first European, possibly the first person in the world, to travel across the world, by sea and land. He was a merchant, who had to change or adapt his identities many times and had accumulated a lot of knowledge on the way. He was also welcomed in the court of Akbar.” Through a careful study of his dress, painter Roger Faligot identified him in two early 17th century miniatures from the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Interestingly, during the 19th century scholars such as Burnouf or Max Muller studied India in the libraries and built a knowledge of the world on the basis of the materials collected. It changed the way we look at the world history. Such paintings are of an immense aesthetic value. But since it was impossible to exhibit them as preservation is not an easy task, they remained unknown.
Transporting them is often impossible as given their antiquity, these are are fragile and also expensive. Besides, one can exhibit only one image per album, while some of them contain hundreds of pictures.
“So we have digitalised it as it becomes easier to consult the documents, and also to exhibit them. It will enrich our knowledge about the past and have a more accurate understanding of the present,” says Samuel.
(The exhibition is on till December 7 at Delhi’s National Museum.)
