Fraser Album
The Fraser Album is a now dispersed compilation of paintings commissioned by the British Indian civil servant William Fraser and his older brother James Baille Fraser. Its works are considered among the greatest masterpieces of Company painting.[1][2] The work is an important documentation of the Mughal empire towards its end, including ethnographic, occupational, and natural studies.
Background
[edit]William Fraser arrived in India in 1802, his brother James following twelve years later in 1814.[3]
William likely began to hire Indian artists around 1815 to prepare maps and drawings for land and settlement work he was undertaking for the East India Company.[4] James later wrote to William requesting a "memo of Native Drawings wished for," resulting in William routinely taking artists with him on tours.
The Album
[edit]The Album was created in the Mughal muraqqa' style, folios of paintings boind together with samples of work from numerous artists and calligraphers.[5] There are over 90 known paintings and drawings in the album, largely painted between 1815 and 1819 following William's movements around India. For instance, in 1819, William sent James a portfolio of 40 portraits, many of which James used for his own artistic interests.[4]
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The album is remarkable for its folios of 'type' portraits, depictions of ethnic groups that display the clothing, labours and stereotypical appearance of specific ethnicities and communities.[5] These form a series of works of villagers, soldiers, moneylenders, Jats, Pathans, Afghan horse-dealers, Mewatis, and Sikhs.
Of the 90 known portraits, 38 were of members of Skinner's Horse, 2 are mythological and 2 are animal studies.[4] Below each portrait is inscribed in English or Persian the names of the sitters, and in some cases the ages, and occupations.
James Fraser intended for many of the portraits to be exhibited on his return to Britain. The album was rediscovered among the Fraser's papers in 1979, bound in a red leather binding, with many images loose alongside, and would later be dispersed among private and public collections.[6] The first, loose images appeared in a sale with Sotheby's on the 7th of July, 1980. The bound images were sold with Sotheby's New York on the 9th of December 1980.[7]
Artists and Style
[edit]Several Indian artists based in Delhi worked on paintings in the Fraser Album, but remain unknown. However, works can be attributed by style to Ghulam Ali Khan. Another artist who produced portraits for the album was Lallji (alternatively Lalljee), mentioned in the letters of James Baille Fraser as a former pupil of Johann Zoffany.[4]
The albums artworks are praised for their sharp delineation of detail, often displaying figures against a plain white background. The works sensitively blend Mughal visual motifs with Western naturalism, particularly in their treatment of group scenes and depictions of religious figures.[8]
Gallery
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A Master of the Fraser Album, Villagers Grinding Corn, c. 1816-20. Art Institute of Chicago
A Master of the Fraser Album, Elephant and Driver, c. 1815–1819.
A Master of the Fraser Album, Kala, the Sepoy, with Sabre Drawn and in Uniform, c. 1815–1816. The David Collection
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ↑ Dalrymple, William (16 August 2003). "William Dalrymple on The Dehlie Book". The Guardian – via www.theguardian.com.
- ↑ Schwendener, Martha (8 March 2012). "Scenes From a Dying Empire". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
- ↑ Harris, R.G. (1981). "Skinner's Horse. 1815-1939". Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. 59 (239): 127–139. JSTOR 44229528 – via JSTOR.
- 1 2 3 4 Goswany, B.N (2011). "Masters of the "Company" Portraits". Artibus Asiae. Supplementum. 48, Masters of Indian Painting II: 1650—1900: 769–778. JSTOR 23223173 – via JSTOR.
- 1 2 Patel, Alka (2015). "The Photographic Albums of Abbas Ali as Continuations of the Mughal Muraqqaʿ Tradition". Getty Research Journal. 1 (7): 35–52. doi:10.1086/680733. JSTOR 10.1086/680733 – via JSTOR.
- ↑ "A Fraser Album Artist, 1815–1819, The Bullock-drawn carriage of Prince Mirza Babur". www.christies.com.
- ↑ Plumbly, Sarah (28 Oct 2025). "Lot Essay". Christies.com. Retrieved 23/08/2026.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help) - ↑ Archer, Mildred (1972). Company Drawings in the Office Library. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. p. 198.