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English Babu (Native Indian Clerk) Holding a Hookah

c. 1890
Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper

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In the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland · as of July 2026

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FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG

This is an archetypal satirical caricature of a native Indian clerk (babu), a Bengali dapper dandy whose fashion sense combines British and Indian mores with dissonant results. Imitating his British masters, he sits cross-legged on a Victorian chair, holding a hookah, sporting a Prince Albert hairstyle, and wearing European buckled shoes. His posture models popular photo studio portraits of the time. Kalighat painters ridiculed these vain babus as foppish nouveau riche.

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