An Irish Painter in Calcutta: Thomas Hickey and the Indian Portraits

Thomas Hickey was born in Dublin in 1741, the son of a Capel Street confectioner. He died in Madras in 1824. Between the two lie Bath, London, Calcutta, a voyage to China, and some of the most unexpected portraits in Irish art.

The woman on the cushioned couch

In 1787, in Calcutta, Hickey painted a woman in pink, seated on a cushioned couch with palms behind her. The National Gallery of Ireland titles it An Indian Lady, perhaps 'Jemdanee', Bibi of William Hickey. The hedge is the gallery's own: her identity has never been settled. The canvas measures 102 × 127 cm and hangs in Dublin (NGI.1390).

What you notice first is how still she is. She isn't posed as a curiosity or a type. The gold at her throat and the weight of the shawl are painted with the care Hickey gave his Bath society sitters, and the attention is the same.

The minister in gold

Around 1801, Hickey painted Purniya, Chief Minister of Mysore, who held the kingdom together after the fall of Tipu Sultan. Purniya wears a gold jama and a crimson sash, with a statue of Justice behind him. That original is in the Yale Center for British Art, not in Ireland, but it is the same hand and the same seriousness. Hickey also sketched members of Tipu Sultan's family at Srirangapatna and Vellore between 1799 and 1801.

A fair reading

Hickey worked inside East India Company society, and these portraits were made in that world and on its terms. They are also among the few places where Irish art looks directly at Indian faces, and gives them dignity and detail. Both things are true, and the paintings hold both.

The other half of the story

For Hickey's generation, the Irish–India route ran one way, with Irish painters, soldiers and clerks going east. In the last decade it has turned around.

At the 2022 census, Indian citizens in Ireland numbered around 45,000, the largest growth of any nationality since 2016. In the year before the census, 10,593 Indian citizens arrived, up 315% on the year before the 2016 census. Almost three-quarters were aged 23 to 43, and the other large group was children of primary-school age. Separately, 94,434 people identified as Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi under the census's new ethnic-group category.

Those are the nurses, doctors, engineers and developers who staff Irish hospitals and tech campuses, and their children are now in Irish classrooms. A Dubliner went to Calcutta in the 1780s and painted what he saw. Two centuries on, Calcutta, Mysore and Madras have come to Dublin, and they are building lives here.

Seen that way, the portraits in the National Gallery of Ireland are an early chapter in a shared history that is still being written.

On your wall

An Indian Lady is available as an archival print, unframed or in a black, white or wood frame, made to order and shipped free worldwide. Purniya is available in three sizes, framed or unframed.

An Indian Lady — Thomas Hickey
Purniya, Chief Minister of Mysore — Thomas Hickey

Sources: CSO Census 2022 — citizenship, ethnic group, summary results.