Maid bringing a hookah to a lady (recto), from a Kalighat albumc. 1890 · Study 2003.107.a

Context from the museum

Kalighat paintings reflect the time and context in which they were created. Kalighat painters used their medium to offer penetrating and insightful critiques of British-influenced Indians as well as the British themselves through satires and caricatures. Newly rich Bengali native Indian clerks (babus) aspired to dress and behave like their British masters, and Kalighat painters taunted them for this. The maid, dressed in green, holds a hookah in her right hand. The lady in red is likely a fashionable high society concubine or prostitute known and depicted at this time as hookah-smoking, makeup-wearing, paan- (betel leaf with areca nut and lime paste) chewing hussies. The wealth created by the East India Company made it possible for Bengali babu dandies to have concubines and pay for prostitutes.

Museum description reproduced from its CC0 open-access record. Read the original catalog entry.

Read the dimensions before the image

The selected painting only measurement for Maid bringing a hookah to a lady (recto), from a Kalighat album is 27.5 cm wide and 45.8 cm high, equivalent to approximately 10.8 × 18.0 inches. Dividing width by height gives a format ratio of 0.60:1. The rectangular bounding area is 0.13 square meters; it describes the measured footprint, not the amount of paint or the monetary value.

On an illustrative 300 cm wall, the recorded width occupies 9.2% of the span before adding a frame. A centered placement leaves approximately 136.3 cm on each side before adding a frame. These are calculations by Physical Art For Crypto using museum measurements. They are not the museum’s display recommendations.

Questions to bring to your own collection

With Maid bringing a hookah to a lady (recto), from a Kalighat album in view, identify one feature you can point to, then distinguish what the museum records from your personal response. Keep its medium, Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper, in your notes when comparing contemporary works.

• Which part of this vertical composition catches your eye first?
• Would a 27.5 cm width still suit the space after allowing for furniture and a frame?
• What surface detail would you need to see in person or in a close photograph?