James Wales (1747-95) Meanwhile, Bombay on the west coast was attracting relatively few artists. James Wales was the only professional painter of note to establish a practice there in the late eighteenth century. Born in Scotland, Wales initially ran a modest portrait practice in Aberdeen. By 1783, hoping for greater opportunities, he had moved with his family to Barnet near London. He was soon exhibiting, first at the Society of Artists and then at the Royal Academy. The following year, James Forbes, a fellow Scot and amateur artist, retired from the Bombay Presidency having served with the Company as a civilian for sixteen years. He bought an estate at Stanmore, near the home of the Wales family. By this time, having occupied his leisure hours in India by drawing and compiling a journal full of detailed notes and observations, Forbes had become the leading authority on aspects of Western India. Notebooks with drawings and accounts of the environment, its natural history, culture, and many other aspects, had returned with him to England. When the two men met, Forbes clearly convinced Wales that there might be more opportunities for him as a painter in Bombay. In January 1791, Wales easily obtained permission from the Company Directors as both a portrait and landscape artist, since no other painter was then residing in Bombay. Leaving his wife and young daughters behind, Wales set sail and reached Bombay in mid-July 1791. On arrival he explored the environs of the Bombay islands, drawing views of Malabar Hill, Mazagaon, and Sion, besides the Salsette islands immediately to the north. At the same time, he met local British residents who were soon commissioning portraits of themselves and their families. It was, however, the Company civilian, Sir Charles Warre Malet, who became Wales’s most important patron and friend. Since 1786, Malet had been British Resident at the Maratha Court in Poona, a strategic town about five days’ journey from Bombay up in the Western Ghats. From July 1792, Wales visited Poona regularly, staying in a house provided by Malet in the Residency grounds. During his first visit, he met the Maratha Peshwa, Madhu Rao Narayan, and was commissioned by his Court to paint the Peshwa’s portrait with his chief minister, Nana Fadnavis. The Maratha Court at Poona had experienced several turbulent decades, and Malet had been appointed Resident to help create stability. After the death in 1772 of the fourth Peshwa, Madhav Rao I, Poona had become a centre of intrigue. The succession of his brother, Narayan Rao, as Peshwa was opposed by their uncle, Raghunath Rao and ended with Narayan Rao's murder in August the following year. The Peshwa's powerful followers, including Nana Fadnavis, continued to support Narayan Rao's widow, who was pregnant at the time of her husband's death. When her son was born in April 1774, the child was pronounced Peshwa Madhu Rao Narayan. Nana Fadnavis became guardian of the infant and virtual ruler of the Court at Poona. It was Raghunath Rao's subsequent attempt to regain the throne by concluding the Treaty of Surat with the British in 1775 that led to the first Maratha war, 1775-82. Source : ILLWA

Madhu Rao Narayan, Maratha Peshwa and Nana Fadnavis with Attendants; 1792 Oil on canvas 228.6 x 190.4 cm By JAMES WALES (1747-1795) This painting was commissioned by Madhu Rao soon after James Wales arrived in Poona in July 1792, and shows the young Peshwa (Ruler) of the Marathas with his able Chief Minister, Nana Fadnavis. Through the British Resident at Poona, Sir Charles Malet, Wales had also been introduced to the most powerful of the Maratha rulers, Mahadaji Sindhia, and, with Malet's patronage, the Scotsman received many lucrative commissions. He shows the Peshwa seated in the Durbar hall of the Shanwarwada Palace in Poonah, and wearing the typical Maratha turban, with a jewelled sarpesh (turban ornament) of the design worn only by royalty. A shamiana or canopy was often erected over this type of cushion throne, to emphasize the status of those seated on it, for example, in a public audience. James Wales was born in Peterhead, North East Scotland, and was largely self-taught. His early portraits, painted on tin plate, were sold in Aberdeen for 1- 1 ½ guineas each. After moving to London, Wales also painted landscapes and exhibited at the Royal Academy (1788/89) and Society of Artists (1783/91) before deciding to try his fortune in India and sailing for Bombay in 1791. Here he was fortunate to receive commissions from a fellow Scot, Craufurd Bruce, and also to meet Sir Charles Malet, who invited him to Poona. Wales took with him as his assistant, a soldier of the 77th Regiment, Robert Mabon, who was disillusioned with military life and wanted to pursue his artistic interests. Mabon made lighthearted sketches of their flood-engulfed journey from Bombay to Poona, and at Poona, he provided meticulously detailed sketches of jewellery, metalwork, furniture and architecture, as references for Wales. Wales himself introduced European art to the Maratha court, persuading the Peshwa to establish a school for drawing and negotiating the use of a 'Bungello' for the display of works of art. For his patron, Wales painted a large picture of the Treaty of Poona signed on 6 August 1790. Malet had negotiated this alliance between the Marathas and the British, against Tipu. He had also visited Hyderabad, where William Kirkpatrick, the Resident, was working to dissuade the Nizam from joining Tipu against the British. By tradition, the Marathas were a tough, martial race, with neither time nor interest in paintings. However, the court, seeing the British fondness for commissioning portraits, decided that it could only enhance their political favour with the British to do likewise - greatly to Wales's advantage : 'It is no small pleasure for me to find that I improve in my painting and that I do not like to leave any picture till it is in a much higher state of perfection than my painting used to be,' he wrote. Unfortunately, when the vast Maratha empire began to collapse, with the wars of 1803-05 and 1817-1819, many of these Maratha portraits were destroyed, and some of Wales's best-known surviving works are the engraved views of Elephanta, which he worked up from drawings into paintings for an early patron, a retired Company servant, James Forbes. Source : Tiger and Thistle