Thomas Hickey, Irish, 1741-1824
Title: An Indian Lady, perhaps 'Jemdanee', Bibi of William Hickey
Date: 1787
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
102 x 127 cm
Signed: lower left: T. Hickey 1787
Credit Line: Presented, Sir Alec Martin, through the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland, 1959
Object Number: NGI.1390
ProvenancePresented, Sir Alec Martin, through the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland, 1959
Exhibition HistoryIrish Portraits 1660-1860, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 14 August - 14 October 1969; National Portrait Gallery, London, 30 October 1969 - 4 January 1970; Ulster Museum, Belfast, 28 January - 9 March 1970
Aspects of Irish Art, a Loan Exhibition; Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Columbus, Ohio, 27 January - 3 March 1974; Toledo Museum of Arts, Toledo, Ohio, 17 March - 14 April 1974; St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, Missouri, 3 May - 9 June 1974
Aspects of Irish Art, a Loan Exhibition; Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Columbus, Ohio, 27 January - 3 March 1974; Toledo Museum of Arts, Toledo, Ohio, 17 March - 14 April 1974; St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, Missouri, 3 May - 9 June 1974
Label TextThis picture, painted in Calcutta during Hickey’s first stay in India (1784-88), is one of his finest works in oils. It has been suggested that the sitter was Jemdanee, the Indian bibi or mistress of the lawyer and diarist William Hickey, a close friend but no relation of the artist. Indian women would not normally have allowed themselves to be painted by a Western male artist, and would not have sat cross-legged and barefoot. The young woman’s pose, sitting on cushions, is probably the portrait’s least conventional characteristic.