UPCOMING EVENT: "Heteroglot Art Of Early Modern Bengal: Paintings, Manuscripts And Patronage In Murshidabad"

Amidst all the newly emerging historical perspectives, it is crucial to move beyond viewing eighteenth century India as a period of chaos and anarchy; and instead as a period characterized by interaction, mobility and exchanges. Nawabs and courtiers of Bengal, French and English East India Company officers and Jain mercantile communities forged inter-regional and trans-regional artistic networks in early modern Murshidabad which contributed in the production and circulation of ‘Murshidabadi’ paintings and in forging artistic sensibilities during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Therefore, The locus of art patronage in eighteenth century Bengal was courtly, aristocratic, colonial and mercantile. The complex patterns of patronage points to nuanced understanding of Murshidabad painting as something that showed extraordinary cosmopolitanism in terms of not only the style but also the themes of the paintings.

Voyages into the Past cordially invites you to a lecture by Dr. Mrinalini Sil, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow working on a project at the Rijksmuseum, titled "Heteroglot Art Of Early Modern Bengal: Paintings, Manuscripts And Patronage In Murshidabad" on 19th September, Friday, 2 pm onwards, at the Sociology Lecture Theatre, Presidency University (College Street Campus, Kolkata).

***Entry is free and open to all. Please carry an ID card along with you if attending.