Archibald Swinton's Murshidabad Paintings: An Art Historian and a Scientific Analyst Working in Collaboration

In this lecture, Friederike Voigt (Principal Curator, West, South and Southeast Asian Collections) and Juan Pablo Rodríguez Jiménez (Heritage Science Analyst, Collections Services) introduced students from colleges and universities in West Bengal to a multi-disciplinary research project on a group of Indian paintings from mid-18th century Murshidabad, West Bengal, India in the collections of National Museums Scotland.

Voigt and Rodríguez Jiménez shared with the students their respective views on these paintings from an art historical and from a heritage science background, discussed the shaping of a joint research question and engaged them with collaborative working in a multi-disciplinary team. Voigt explained in more detail the group of paintings that Archibald Swinton had brought with him from India on his return to Scotland in 1766. She connected the paintings to Swinton's diaries and invited the students to reflect on the paintings' subject matters in relation to his experiences in India.

Rodríguez Jiménez explained the scientific methods used to analyse the paintings in the laboratories at National Museums Collection Centre. He presented some of the results, invited the attendees to think about what the results could mean, and then explained how they can be interpreted within the framework of the project's research questions.

The lecture inspired a discussion about the paintings as historical sources on Indian-Scottish encounters in Bengal in the 1750s-60s.

This lecture was given as part of an optional course on "History as Representation: Theoretical Context and Practical Applications" co-organised by Dr Sudipto Mukhopadhyay, Subha Chandra Bose Centenary College, and Friederike Voigt, National Museums Scotland.