Sheikh Zainuddin or Shaikh Zain-al-Din () was an Indian artist who moved from

Patna Patna (; , ISO 15919, ISO: ''Paṭanā''), historically known as Pataliputra, Pāṭaliputra, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, ...

to Calcutta and worked for

patronage Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows on another. In the history of art, art patronage refers to the support that princes, popes, and other wealthy and influential people ...

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

. His works blending

Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...

and Western painting techniques belonged to the

Company style Company style, also known as Company painting (Hindi: ''kampani kalam'') is a term for a hybrid Indo-European style of paintings made in British India by Indian artists, many of whom worked for European patrons in the East India Company or other ...

of painting.

Career

In the late eighteenth century, he worked under

Mary Impey Mary, Lady Impey ( Reade; 2 March 1749 – 20 February 1818) was an English people, English Natural history, natural historian and patron of the arts in Bengal. The wife of Sir Elijah Impey, the Chief Justice of Bengal, she established a men ...

, the wife of Sir

Elijah Impey Sir Elijah Impey (13 June 17321 October 1809) was a British judge who served as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, Chief Justice of the Sadr Diwani Adalat and Member of Parliament for New Romn ...

, Chief Justice of Calcutta Supreme Court. Among the three artists she brought from

to make realistic sketches of birds and animals of her private

menagerie A menagerie is a collection of captive animals, frequently exotic, kept for display; or the place where such a collection is kept, a precursor to the modern zoo or zoological garden. The term was first used in 17th-century France, referring to ...

, Zainuddin was the foremost. Zainuddin combined English botanical illustration with Mughal Patna Qalam style. In his paintings, modern critics appreciate the way a "bright, simple background offsets the keenly wrought details of plants and animals". From 1777 to 1782, Zainuddin worked on Whiteman art paper manufactured in England for his transparent

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...

paintings. For his tinted drawings and sketches, he employed meticulous calligraphic strokes reminiscent of the works of Mughal Court artist

Ustad Mansur Ustad Mansur (died 1624) was a seventeenth-century Indian painter and naturalist who served as a Mughal court artist. During which period he excelled at depicting plants and animals. He was the earliest artist to depict the dodo in colour, apart ...

. The

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University ...

has some of his art. File:Orange-headed_thrush_1778.jpg,

Orange-headed thrush The orange-headed thrush (''Geokichla citrina'') is a bird in the thrush family. It is common in well-wooded areas of the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Most populations are resident. The species shows a preference for shady damp areas ...

and an '' Acherontia'' moth on a ''

Bauhinia ''Bauhinia'' () is a large genus of flowering plants in the subfamily Cercidoideae and tribe Bauhinieae, in the large flowering plant family Fabaceae, with a pantropical distribution. The genus was named after the Bauhin brothers Gaspard and ...

'' File:A_macaboo_thrush_shaykh_zayn_al-din_calcutta_india_1782.jpg,

Chestnut-tailed starling The chestnut-tailed starling (''Sturnia malabarica''), also called grey-headed starling and grey-headed myna is a member of the starling family. It is a resident or partially migratory species found in wooded habitats in India and Southeast Asia. ...

on a ''

Clerodendrum ''Clerodendrum'' is a genus of flowering plants formerly placed in the family Verbenaceae, but now considered to belong to the Lamiaceae (mint) family. Its common names include glorybower, bagflower, pagoda flower and bleeding-heart. It is curre ...

'' sp. File:Female Trogon shaykh zayn al-din calcutta india 1779.jpg, '' Harpactes erythrocephalus'' female on a melastome File:Psilopogon zeylanica Zaynuddin.jpg, ''

Psilopogon zeylanicus The brown-headed barbet (''Psilopogon zeylanicus'') is an Asian barbet species native to the Indian subcontinent, where it inhabits tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests. Taxonomy The brown-headed barbet was formally described in 17 ...

'' on a ''Polyalthia'' File:Anastomus_Zayn_Al_Din.jpg, '' Anastomus oscitans'' with snail File:LadyImpeyEphippiorhynchus.jpg,

Black-necked stork The black-necked stork (''Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus'') is a tall long-necked wading bird in the stork family. It is a resident species across the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia with a disjunct population in Australia. It lives in wetla ...

File:Sheikh_Zain_ud-Din_-_Indian_Roller_on_Sandalwood.jpg

Indian Roller The Indian roller (''Coracias benghalensis'') is a bird of the family Coraciidae. It is long with a wingspan of and weighs . The face and throat are pinkish, the head and back are brown, with blue on the rump and contrasting light and dark bl ...

Exhibitions

Zainuddin's work was first exhibited in 2016 at the

Royal Albert Memorial Museum Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) is a museum and art gallery in Exeter, Devon, the largest in the city. It holds significant and diverse collections in areas such as zoology, anthropology, fine art, local and foreign archaeolog ...

in Exeter, as part of th
Flower Power exhibition
At that point his name, written in an old hand-writing was taken to be "Jack Joyenadey." Since then, researchers working together with the museum staff, have deciphered his name. The updated exhibition i
online
Subsequently, Zainuddin's work was exhibited in 2019 at London's

Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse (Great Britain), townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquess of Hertford, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wall ...

, along with that of 17 other artists commissioned by the British East India Company. The director of the Wallace Collection, Xavier Bray, told '' Smithsonian'' that in Zainuddin's paintings, "Everything is incredibly precise and beautifully observant."

References

External links

* {{Authority control Year of birth missing Year of death missing 18th-century Indian painters Indian male painters

Career

Exhibitions

See also

References

External links