Room for Wonder: Indian Painting During the British Period 1760-1880 by Stuart Cary Welch (1978)

Room for Wonder accompanies the American Federation of Arts’ landmark 1978–79 travelling exhibition, tracing the emergence and evolution of the “Company style” in India between 1760 and 1880. Stuart Cary Welch’s richly researched introduction sets the scene, explaining how Indian artists—commissioned by European patrons—fused local techniques and subjects with Western sensibilities to create botanical studies, court portraits, topographical views and genre scenes that captured colonial India’s complex cultural encounter.

Through over one hundred carefully reproduced images, including full-page colour plates alongside fine black-and-white photographs, Welch guides the reader chronologically and thematically. Each example is accompanied by concise captions detailing provenance, date and medium, while the chronology of major exhibitions, a selective bibliography and a thorough index ensure that scholars and students can easily navigate this definitive survey.

Printed in a generous quarto format on art-quality paper and bound in sturdy wraps, Room for Wonder remains the essential reference for curators, collectors and anyone seeking to understand how colonial dynamics shaped one of South Asia’s most distinctive artistic movements.

• Antique Books
• Indian Art
• British Empire

ENG- English

• Hardcover