Joanna de Silva
William Wood British
Painted at a time of rapidly expanding British colonialism, this is an exceptionally rare independent likeness of an identifiable Indian woman by an eighteenth-century English artist. As identified by her portrait’s inscription, Joanna de Silva was a native of Bengal, in eastern India, and was employed as a nursemaid in the family of an officer with the British East India Company. She later accompanied an orphaned daughter of the family to England, where she sat for this portrait. The sitter wears the delicate Indian textiles that were sought after around the globe in the 1700s.
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