In the late 1700s, the wife of the British chief justice of Bengal kept a private zoo. Lady Mary Impey had birds, deer, monkeys and other animals in the grounds of her house in Calcutta, and she hired Indian artists to paint them from life. One of those artists was Bhawani Das, who had trained in the Patna tradition and worked for her around 1780. This great fruit bat is one of his paintings.
The Impey commission was ambitious. Along with two other artists, Shaykh Zayn al-Din and Ram Das, Bhawani Das produced hundreds of natural-history watercolors of animals, birds and fish. They are among the best examples of what is called Company painting, a style that combined the close observation of Indian traditions with the techniques that European scientific illustrators wanted, such as accurate proportion, detail and a neutral white background.
That is why the bat is shown almost like a specimen. Its wings are fully stretched, every finger of the wing visible, and the animal hangs so we can see its whole form. The great Indian fruit bat, which some call a flying fox, is the largest bat in the region, with a wingspan well over a meter. Bhawani Das captured the soft golden fur at its neck, the dark leathery membrane, and its hooked claws.
The work was not made for art's sake. Lady Impey wanted an accurate record, and her husband's job was to deliver British law in India. Yet the pictures are more than records. The care in the line and color is the work of someone who looked a long time.
Today the Impey albums are scattered among museums, and they are valued as both scientific documents and art.
Bhawani Das's Great Indian Fruit Bat appears on our: