Glass Paintings : An Ephemeral Art in India/Samita Gupta. 1997, 33 p., 27 Col. Plates, $63.
Contents: Preface. 1. Prolegomena. 2. European influences. 3. Collection in the Bharat Itihas Samshodhak Mandal. 4. Notes and references. 5. Notes on illustrations. Bibliography.
"In the book, Glass Paintings : An Ephemeral Art in India, the author has recorded the hitherto unpublished glass paintings found in the collection of the Bharat Itihas Samshodhak Mandal of Pune. These paintings represent a novel technique; these are done in oil rather than in water as was the earlier practice. The choice of the themes is also a departure from the traditional ones. They consist mainly of portraits representing an exotic fashion which also attempts to bring out the personality of the subject.
"This is a pioneering effort by the author to study an important but rather unknown aspect of the culture of the nineteenth century in western India". (jacket)
[Samita Gupta is Head of the Department of History in Nowrosjee Wadia College, Pune. She also wrote Architecture and the Raj : Western Deccan 1700-1900.]