An Indian widow being led to suttee. Coloured etching, 1811.

Date:
Published as the Act directs, Feb. 16 1811
Reference:
10948i
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Description

According to Professor Paul B. Courtright, the print "emphasizes the latent eroticism in sati representation in the early nineteenth century" and resembles a French lithograph in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris" (letter to the Wellcome Institute, 24 March 1993)

The print "depicts Solvyns's central figures, the widow and her two brahmin attendants, in a composition with a scene of the pyre by another artist" according to Hardgrave, loc. cit., referring to a print (not a lithograph) by François Balthazar Solvyns, Calcutta edition, section XII, no. 13, "Shoho Gomon,--Women burning themselves with the Corpse of their Husband"

Publication/Creation

London : [publisher not identified], Published as the Act directs, Feb. 16 1811.

Physical description

1 print : etching, with watercolour ; platemark 23.8 x 19.1 cm

Lettering

A woman going to burn on the funeral pile of her husband.

References note

Robert L. Hardgrave, 'The representation of sati: four eighteenth century etchings by Baltazard Solvyns', Bengal past and present, 117 (1998): 57-80

Reference

Wellcome Collection 10948i

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