The Indian Fruit Seller
Description:
The woman depicted is named, like the image, by her work: “the fruit seller.” The fruit seller stands in the foreground, leaning against the pole of a stand, her breasts exposed and her head lowered. She is surround by lush, ripe fruit: a string of bananas hangs on the right side of the image, and on the left a basket of pineapples and coconuts rests on the ground. A temple and a large banyan tree occupy the background.
Copyright:
Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Primary Works:
The Oriental Annual, or Scenes in India (Vol. 2: London, 1835)
Accession Number:
AY 13 O7 1835
Printing Context
The Indian Fruit Seller was an original sketch done by William Daniell, inspired by his travels in India. It is bound in The Oriental Annual, or Scenes in India (1835) as the frontispiece to the book.Associated Events
Tours of Wiliam and Thomas Daniell in IndiaAssociated Places
The East India Company (1600-1873)Associated Texts
The Oriental Annual, or Scenes in India (Vol. 2: London, 1835)Upon quitting Hurdwar, as I have stated in the conclusion of the former volume, we proceeded towards the mountains. A short distance from that venerated spot where ablutions in the Ganges are considered so especially efficacious to spiritual purgation, there is a remarkable banyan tree. It is consecrated to the worship of the Hindoo godhead, and its sanctuary is constantly visited by devout pilgrims from the neighbouring countries. The stem, of vast circumference, is surrounded by a terrace. It is hollowed out into a chamber of considerable dimensions, which has been converted into a temple by the pious zeal of the devotees who visit it daily, merely entering on one side and passing out the other, where they pay tribute, after the manner of all true believers, in the current mintage of the land; by which they acquire a mystical purification. Being aliens from the privileged stock, we were not allow to enter the adytum of this forest sanctuary, lest we should desecrate its hallowed mysteries and thus neutralize the potential efficacy with which the presiding diety is supposed to have endowed it.Even though the author, Rev. Hobart Cauter, is recalling a different tree than that which is depicted in The Indian Fruit Seller, William Daniell most likely associated his image with this account. Despite the title and supposed focus of the image, the featured "fruit seller" slumps away from us in the corner, giving the viewer a chance to contemplate the distant banyan tree surrounded by pilgrims. However, since the British travelers are of “privileged stock,” they exert their privileged gaze on a half-naked, female fruit seller rather than approaching the foreign, potential sanctity of the banyan tree.
Subject
In this engraving, William Daniell draws on different elements of Indian mythology—accounts of holy banyan trees as well as images of yakshi, goddesses closely associated with the fertility of nature—to portray a woman fruit seller as occupying a potential site of sancitity.Significance
In the image of The Indian Fruit Seller, William Daniell captures the woman’s sacred and seductive qualities. The British contact with India shaped the ways in which women were incorporated into the picturesque aesthetic. The Daniells were undoubtedly familiar with the seductive images of yakshi on the façade of Karli: yakshi, portrayed as naked nymphs, were mother goddesses that could cause a tree to blossom with just one touch (Mitter). It is probable that Daniell is drawing upon this well-known myth by placing a naked woman, surrounded by ripe fruit, beside a banyan tree. As a result, this image enacts a type of transculturation by merging Indian artistic tradition with the picturesque to create a hybrid form.Function
The Oriental Annual, or Scenes in India constituted a combination of fictional and instructional manuals that were widely distributed and read; many book reviews regarding The Oriental Annual are found in periodicals of the time.
Bibliography
Archer, Mildred. Early Views of India: The Picturesque Journeys of Thomas and William Daniell, 1786-1794: The Complete Aquatints. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1980. Print.Long Title
The Oriental Annual 1835. The Indian Fruit-Seller, Drawn by W. Daniell R.A., Engraved by R. Woodman, From Drawings by W. Daniell R.A., Printed by J. Yates.Featured in Exhibit:
Painter:
Engraver:
Image Date:
1835
Publisher:
Bull and Churton (or Bull and Co.)