On loan to The Met The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Nobleman seated against bolster
Under Western influences, conventional modes of Indian portraiture, particularly the profile view, gave way to frontal poses, gazes that address the viewer, and increasing naturalism.
The clean-shaven, white-haired Anglo-Indian figure is dressed in the European fashion of the late eighteenth century. The gentleman from Lucknow wears the fine chikankari embroidered cotton from the region, seen in his white jama and cap. The realism of his portrait anticipates the early photographs (daguerreotypes) soon to come.
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