In the late eighteenth century, the magnificent Indian city of Lucknow was at the height of its Golden Age. Flamboyant, glamorous and newly rich, it attracted artists who flocked to the cosmopolitan city in search of commissions from of a dynasty of wealthy Nawabs, or Mughal governors, who had the means to patronise artists with an extravagant generosity.
One of Lucknow’s foreign residents was Claude Martin, an enigmatic, self-made French buccaneer- businessman from Lyon, who worked for both the English East India Company and the Nawabs of Lucknow.
In the 1770s, Martin imported 17,000 sheets of European watercolour paper and commissioned a series of natural history illustrations from the master artists of Lucknow. They gave birth to a unique new hybrid style, one that was unquestionably Lucknavi- Mughal, but with a strong European influence. The result was over 1,800 exquisite drawings of birds, plants and reptiles, many of which have never before been exhibited in public.