BOMBAY POTTERY - Julie Romain

DECORATIVE ARTS AND DESIGN

BOMBAY POTTERY

A fusion of Indian and Western art technologies

JULIE ROSENBERG Western art technologies, Bombay reorganise Indian artisans for the
pottery was an experiment for the British mass production of Indian
The development of glazed Bombay art teachers in India, as they hoped it handicrafts.3 The techniques and styles
(now Mumbai) pottery in the late would provide new design models for were derived from Indian glazed
nineteenth century demonstrated the artists at ‘home’. pottery traditions in Delhi in northern
British orientalist attitude toward India and at Multan and Sind in
Indian art; that it could be Bombay pottery was one of the most modern Pakistan. These traditions had
appropriated and moulded into a popular products sold at international existed since approximately the twelfth
superior style, fit for the European exhibitions in the late nineteenth and century, when Islamic rulers brought
market.1 At the same time, the British early twentieth centuries. The South artisans from Persia to decorate both
revered Indian arts and crafts for their Kensington Museum (now the Victoria secular and religious buildings with
classical elegance and British officials and Albert Museum) in London painted tiles. The most popular
who came to India to study its art collected samples of Bombay pottery; examples of this style are the blue and
were mesmerised by the effortlessness the museum was a major repository white glazed tiles that decorated the
with which Indian craft workers created for Indian arts and crafts in the mosques in northern India and
these marvels. A fusion of Indian and nineteenth century and a source of Pakistan; the same techniques were
artistic inspiration for art students all used by local potters to create ceramic
Below: Munshi Sher Mohamed (Pakistan, over the United Kingdom.2 Consumer vessels that were typically glazed in
Lahore), Drawing of an Indian potter from demand for Indian pottery was also monochromatic shades of bright
Multan, c. 1902. driven by the tourist industry; tourists green, yellow, purple and blue.4
Published in George Watt, Indian art at from the United Kingdom sought
Delhi; being the official catalogue portable mementos of their tours of In addition to Sind and Multan,
of the Delhi exhibition, 1902-1903, the South Asian subcontinent. They major sources of design motifs for the
(London: John Murray, 1904) marvelled at the sight of Indian potters Bombay pottery were the painted
in their workshops, who were frescoes at Ajanta, the fifth century
Below right: Four framed tiles, romanticized in drawings such as Buddhist cave complex in modern
(Pakistan, Sind), those published in the exhibition Maharashtra, which had been
16th century. 41.91 x 41.91 cm, catalogue for the 1903 Indian art abandoned and subsequently left in a
ceramic with blue and white glazes. exhibition at Delhi. dilapidated state until its ‘re-discovery’
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, by soldiers in the employ of the British
Indian art special purposes fund Bombay pottery developed from East India Company soldiers in 1819.
within the British imperial art The murals were copied by artists
education system in India, which from the Sir J J School of Art in
established workshops set up to Bombay in the 1870s and then widely
circulated to art schools across India for
study.5 British orientalists admired the
Ajanta frescoes for their high degree of
naturalism and characterised them as
the ‘classical’ Indian painting style.

Photograph © Museum Associates / LACMA

120

WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART

DECORATIVE ARTS AND DESIGN

Photographs © Museum Associates/LACMA

In the 1870s Wilkins Terry School of Art who were trained in Water vessel (surahi), (Pakistan, Sind, Hala),
established a pottery workshop in Western painting techniques were c. 1900. 26.04 x 17.15 cm,
Bombay and this later became the enlisted to decorate the pots, which glazed ceramic.
pottery department of the Sir J J were then burnt again to create a Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
School of Art.6 Terry hired potters glazed finish. Since there was a major Indian art special purposes fund
from Sind to work in Bombay and concern to prevent the Indian artists Water vessel (surahi), (India, Maharashtra,
teach the traditional glazed ceramic mixing European and traditional Mumbai), c. 1890.
techniques of the north to local potters Indian motifs in an unflattering 21.27 x 14.61 cm, glazed ceramic.
of the khumbar (potter) caste of west combination, the painting of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
India. A system of apprenticeship pottery was carefully surveyed by South and Southeast Asian acquisition fund
allowed the technique to be passed Terry and other British teachers
from one class of students to the next. assigned from the school to ensure 121
that the finished product appeared
Glazing materials for Bombay ‘authentically’ Indian. WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART
pottery were initially sent south from
Sind. Eventually a local potter’s clay A comparison of two ceramic water
was developed in Bombay that closely vessels (surahi) in the South and
matched the mixtures used to make Southeast Asian art collection of the
Sind pottery. The vessels were made Los Angeles County Museum of Art
by khumbars on traditional potter’s exemplifies the influence of Sind
wheels. Once the clay was dried and pottery on the Bombay style. Both
burnt, painters from the Bombay were made approximately in the same

DECORATIVE ARTS AND DESIGN

era; one is from a traditional painted ceiling decorations of the
workshop in Sind while the other is Ajanta caves.7 The flying geese painted
on the rim of the plate and the
from the Bombay school. The Sind swirling lotus flower motif depicted on
surahi is glazed in a brownish- the vase are both close facsimiles to
yellow colour and decorated those painted in registers on the
with a typical flowering vine ceilings of the Ajanta caves. Both
motif around the base and motifs became extremely popular in
foliage on the neck. The Bombay pottery as well as in local
Bombay surahi is smaller Maharashtran textiles, particularly
in size and has a similar those made for the tourist market.
motif; however, the
colours are dramatically The development of this eclectic
different with a blue and Bombay pottery style could not have
white flowering vine motif occurred in India without the
painted over a reddish- intervention of the British. It is an
brown glaze. In colour and unique style that was highly influenced
shape the flowers more closely by orientalist sentiment of the late
resemble those found in the nineteenth century and was, in actuality, a
blue and white tiles and pottery collaborative process between British
from Multan. instructors and Indian artisans. The re-
discovery of the Ajanta murals had a far
By contrast, a plate and vase in the reaching impact on Indian art throughout
collection of the Victoria and Albert the twentieth century, not only on its arts
Museum illustrate the strong influence and crafts but also on modern painting, as
of the Ajanta frescoes; the animal and they later became a model for a new
floral design motifs painted in red- national ‘Indian’ art style.
orange, yellow and green echo the

Photographs © VSIA Images Above: Plate, (India, Maharashtra, NOTES:
Mumbai), c. 1880. 1. Also known as ‘Wonderland Art Pottery’.
2. The inclusion of Indian pottery at the Great
Glazed earthenware.
Victoria and Albert Museum Exhibition of 1851, held at the Crystal Palace
in London, was a watershed inspiration for
Left: Vase, (India, Maharashtra, Mumbai), British designers searching for new design
c. 1880. 44.0 x 17.5 cm, red earthenware with motifs to invigorate domestic design. Susan
Stronge has described the impact in Britain of
slip-painted decoration under a lead glaze. Indian material shown at international
Victoria and Albert Museum, exhibitions and disseminated through
publications, such as The journal of Indian art
which reproduced chromolithographs of
Indian arts and crafts, including Indian
pottery. See: Susan Stronge, The decorative art
of India, (London: Studio Editions, 1990), p. 8.
3. In addition to Bombay, important pottery
workshops were established in imperial art
schools at Jaipur in northern India and at
Madras in southern India.
4. Examples of monochrome glazed ceramics also
existed in the western Indian village of Pattan, in
modern Gujarat. See ‘Bombay pottery’, The
Journal of Indian Art, vol. 2, no. 17, (1888), pp. 2-5.
5. Opened in 1857, the Mumbai-based Sir J J School
of Art was financed by the Parsi philanthropist,
Sir Jamshedjee Jeejeebhoy, Bart, in hopes of
reviving traditional Indian arts and crafts.
6. Wilkins Terry was founding principal of the Sir
J J School of Art.
7. For comparative images of the Ajanta style
paintings see Benoy Behl, The Ajanta Caves:
artistic wonder of ancient Buddhist India
(New York: Harry N Abrams, 1998).

122

WORLD OF ANTIQUES & ART