‘The Company’ one of a set of three plates in lined tiffin tins by Stephen Dixon. Made in response to York Art Gallery’s painting Lady Charlotte Fitzroy and Her Indian Page, 1669-79, by Sir Peter Lely (YORAG : 18). The Indian Page, in isolation, is offering his gifts to Old East India House, the first home of the East India Company in Leadenhall St, City of London. In the background a Victorian photograph of a dancing bear exemplifies the stereotyped exoticism of India in the European mind. A floral textile print creeps onto the plate from the right, while Queen Victoria looks on, amused or otherwise. Creeping scorpions (from contemporary government health warnings on Indian chewing tobacco) allude to the more sinister nature of Company rule in India (1757 – 1858).
Press–moulded earthenware plates, lead glazed with under-glaze slip decoration, on-glaze printed transfers, open stock transfers and gold lustre.
Sheet steel ‘tiffin boxes’, custom-made by artisans in Ahmedabad, India.
Quilted textile box liners, made at the Gramshree organisation in Ahmedabad. (Calico textiles re-cycled from block-printing table covers, sourced in Ahmedabad.)
