Fakir belonging to a sect known for occasional nudity, Calcutta, West Bengal. Coloured etching by François Balthazar Solvyns, 1799.

[Calcutta] : [François Balthazar Solvyns], [1799]

1 print : etching, with watercolour.

An abd'hoot

François Balthazar Solvyns, a Belgian artist, spent many years in Calcutta, producing drawings of the local people and their customs, showing different castes and street sellers. Solvyns employed local Indian artists to apply watercolour to his series "Manners, customs, and dresses of the Hindoos"

Impressions are cut down, leaving printed lettering at bottom, and pasted onto laid paper with ruled pen borders

Travel in aquatint and lithography 1770-1860 from the library of J.R. Abbey, San Francisco 1991, vol. 2, 421.144

Wellcome Collection 30722i