A look at 18th, 19th century India through colour paintings

The New York Public Library has made public a collection of 177 original ‘talc’ paintings which illustrate costumes, vehicles and trades of India in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The New York Public Library has made public a collection of 177 original ‘talc’ paintings which illustrate costumes, vehicles and trades of India in the 18th and 19th centuries.

A festival procession in which a red and black chariot is drawn by dozens of men. (New York Public Library Digital Collections )

The images range from toddy gatherers working around a palm tree in the 1780s to festival procession outside a temple in 1800s.

Here is a collection of 15 of those images. The rest can be accessed here.

Photos, captions courtesy: New York Public Library Digital Collections

Barber shaving a man’s head bald, one onlooker, white building in the background

Female spinner in front of white building

Two elephants, howdahs, mahouts and public outside a temple

Three men on river structures with ladders and levers

Seated female salt merchant in red sari

Toddy gatherers working around a palm tree

Aristocrat and porter

Festival procession with Hanuman idol, 8 bearers with shaved heads, attendants, and a crowd of onlookers making offerings

Seated male embroiderer on blue striped rug

Ceremony of washing the Goddess Kali, and the idol Jagannath

A woman going to burn on the funeral pile of her husband.

Seated female fruit vendor in white sari holding a balance

Funeral pyre set afire by a man in white dhoti, 5 men are observing the act

Male miller with two oxen, seated man in the background

A festival procession in which a red and black chariot is drawn by dozens of men.