An Officer of a Sepoy Regiment with a Syce and a Drummer
George Carter (Colchester 1737 - Hendon 1795)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1786 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1016 x 1270 mm (40 x 50 in)
Place of origin
India
Order this imageCollection
Wimpole, Cambridgeshire
NT 207795
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, An Officer of a Sepoy Regiment with a Syce and a Drummer, by George Carter (Colchester 1737 - Hendon 1795), signed and dated, lower right: G. Carter pinx 1786. Full-length portraits of three figures. The officer is about to mount his charger which is held by a syce, or groom, and the drummer is at the right and troops are drawn ready for inspection in the middle distance. One of only two portraits by the peripatetic Carter known to date from his stay in India, 1786-1787. As the East India Company established its domains in India, a demand grew for pictures which could serve as a visual record of an officer’s household, including servants and staff, animals and possessions. On 14 September 1785 George Carter was ‘permitted to proceed to India to practice as a Portrait Painter’ by the Court of the East India Company (British Library, India Office Records and Private Papers, IOR/B/101 p.396).
Provenance
Bequeathed by Elsie Kipling, Mrs George Bambridge (1896 - 1976), daughter of Rudyard Kipling, to the National Trust together with Wimpole Hall, all its contents and an estate of 3,000 acres
Credit line
Wimpole Hall, The Bambridge Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
G. Carter pinx. 1786
Makers and roles
George Carter (Colchester 1737 - Hendon 1795), artist