Forgotten Masters

This book highlights the extraordinary contributions of Indian artists during the late Mughal period. Forgotten Masters showcases their unique styles and responses to European influences.

Published to coincide with the first UK exhibition of these masterworks at The Wallace Collection, Forgotten Masters celebrates the work of a series of extraordinary Indian artists. As the East India Company extended its influence across India in the late eighteenth century, many remarkable artworks were commissioned by Company officials from Indian painters who had previously served the Mughals. Each artist had their own unique style, tastes, and agency, creating works for British patrons between the 1770s and the tumultuous end of Mughal rule in 1857.

Edited by writer and historian William Dalrymple, these hybrid paintings explore both the beauty of the Indian natural world and the social realities of the time through one hundred masterpieces, often characterized by astonishing brilliance and originality. They illuminate a forgotten chapter in Anglo-Indian history, showcasing how Indian artists responded to European influences while preserving their own artistic visions and styles.

These artists represent the final phase of Indian artistic genius before the dual challenges of photography and the impact of Western colonial art schools disrupted a continuous painting tradition that had thrived for two thousand years. As Forgotten Masters reveals, the greatest of these painters deserve recognition as some of the most remarkable Indian artists in history.