ART FOR EMPIRE'S SAKE

Collector Sunil Baboo's recent acquisition of colour prints concerning Tipu Sultan provides an interesting history of colonised India

- ANUBHAB ROY

Until Baboo is perhaps not a name that would ring in many nods in a room. His work being in a field - collecting antiques - that is in today's world, is overlooked and understated, being relegated from common consciousness to somewhat of a niche. Nonetheless, his most recent acquisitions, which are two colour prints concerning Tipu Sultan, are bound to turn heads; those not only of artists or art appreciators, but also historians.

Historicisation is an act where the medium in question betrays context. Naturally, most of India's history of colonisation, when extracted from the land itself, has its origin in oral narratives and written text. While the same could be said of British historicisation of colonised India, the pictorial form acts as an equally potent - and utilitarian - mode of narrative.