Details

Object type

watercolour

Title

A Bengali Baniah

Artist/Maker

William Simpson maker

Place Associated

India, Bengal (Place depicted)

Date

1874

Materials

pencil and watercolour, paper

Dimensions

unframed: 276 mm x 443 mm

Description

Watercolour depiction of a man weighing fruit on a scale, surrounded by bowls of fruit and grain. A woman holding a child holds a pot, as if to have it filled. A dog is in the far right. A few more figures are in the background. Signed. An illustration based on this sketch was printed in the Illustrated London News on Saturday 10 January 1874. It was entitled: "The impending famine in Bengal: A Bengalee Beniah or grain-seller." An accompanying article set the conext: "The newspapers present for our reading a sorrowful controversy

among writers of Indian experience upon the sufficiency of the measures for relieving the terrible distress presently expected from the failure of the rice and grain crops in Bengal. We are anxious to contribute our part to direct public attention to the subject, with a view to such efforts for a partial mitigation of this vast amount of human misery as may be found within the reach of voluntary beneficence ; while we hope that the British Government of India will be wisely advised to use its fullest powers with the utmost activity and in the most judicious manner. The first of a series of Illustrations, from the pencil of an Artist who resided and travelled during two years in India, appears in our front-poge Engraving. It represents the ccmmon Baniah, or grain-seller, weighing out a small quantity of corn for his poor customers in the street or market. Rice is the chief article of food only in Lower Bengal, and in some other districts along the coast, or where the fields can be overflowed, in ordinary seasons, with such an abundance of water from great rivers as is needful to produce this crop. The inhabitants of the Upper Provinces, and of Central India, subsist upon other kinds of grain, such as wheat, barley, maize, and pease, or the cheaper grain called which is much used by the labouring classes. They seldom taste any kind of fleshmeat, though it is an error to suppose that animal food is entirely prohibited by the Hindoo religion. Sugar, curdled milk, and boiled butter or ghee, may be used by those who can afford such luxuries to flavour their rice or porridge. As a rule, they are water-drinkers, but are fond of smoking tobacco and cheiving the betel-leaf.- Such are the simple habits of the people, leaving them no lower scale of provisions to fall back upon, in case of a scarcity of their usual articles of diet."

ID Number

MLSC.128396.1

Location

In storage