Alipore Museum Visit: The Babu and The Bazaar - 19th & 20th Century Bengal
On November 4th, 2025, the Department of History, Loreto College, Kolkata, organized an engaging educational visit to the Alipore Museum, where the DAG (Delhi Art Gallery) presented the exhibition The Babu and the Bazaar: Art from 19th and Early-20th Century Bengal. A group of 24 students from the Semester 5 went for the visit, and were guided through the exhibition by Ms. Chaiti Nath, representative from DAG.
The exhibition offered a fascinating visual journey into colonial Calcutta -then the "second city of the British Empire" - a metropolis thriving with commerce, maritime trade, and cultural exchange. Through an impressive collection of Kalighat pats, commissioned oil paintings, reverse-glass works, and mass-produced prints, the exhibition revealed the contrasting worlds of the affluent babus and the vibrant bazaar. These works, created by mostly unnamed artists, reflected the hybrid artistic techniques of the time, merging traditional Indian forms with European influences. Ms. Nath provided insightful commentary on the iconography and the socio-cultural meanings embedded in the artworks. Students learned and interacted on how the pieces captured Calcutta's complex class structures, gender roles, and cultural tensions, highlighting the coexistence of "high" and "low" art within a rapidly modernizing colonial society. The visit illuminated how such early modern art foreshadowed the emergence of individual Indian artists in the twentieth century.
Overall, the field trip proved to be an enriching academic experience, enabling students to appreciate the intersection of art, history, and society, while gaining a deeper understanding of Bengal's visual and cultural evolution during the colonial era.
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