Author:

Sreemoyee Sarkar
Master of Arts in History
Department of History
Presidency University
Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Email: sreemoyee.sree1@gmail.com

Abstract:: This paper mainly aims to argue that though Balthazar Solvyns was extremely influenced by the colonial attitudes and also showed racial and cultural stereotypes, his illustrations do demonstrate an impactful ethnographic interest in the daily life of the inhabitants of the black town, Calcutta. Like the several other colonial artists who mainly focused on the landscapes or monumental architecture, Solvyns did not do that but paid considerable heed to the social groups, festivals, occupations, traditions, and identities of the natives of Calcutta. Solvyns’ illustrations reveal not only the presence of some sort of colonial bias, but an impactful and genuine effort to actually record the black town Calcutta society. The central research question of this particular article is to understand that to what extent did Balthazar Solvyns, through his illustrations, try to reproduce colonial stereotypes about the Indian society, and also to what extent did these illustrations offer a more detailed and ethnographic representation of the daily life of the native inhabitants of the town of Calcutta. In order to analyze the illustrations of Balthazar Solvyns which were produced during the time of his stay in Calcutta between the years 1791 and 1803, this paper adopts the visual-historical as well as interpretative methodology. It studies the selected paintings and etchings from Les Hindus along with the written descriptions by Solvyns.,

Key Words:: Balthazar Solvyns, Black Town ,Calcutta, European, Hindus etc.