Frans Balthazar Solvyns

Frans Balthazar Solvyns or François Balt(h)azar(d) (6 July 1760 – 10 October 1824) was a Flemish marine painter, printmaker and ethnographer. While living and working in India from 1791 to 1803, he made many drawings of the manners and customs of the Indians, especially of Calcutta, which he later etched and published. He is, along with Thomas Daniell, considered one of the early pioneers in the field of print-making in India.

His collection of etchings provide a portrait of Calcutta's 18th century history, and the people and customs of Bengal. His encyclopaedic and systematic approach made him a pioneer of the systematic ethnography of the Indian population. His work had an important influence on 19th century Indian painting.

Life

Solvyns was born in Antwerp in 1760 as the son of Maximiliaan (Maximilianus) Solvyns, a merchant, and Maria Elisabeth Abeloos. He studied from 1775 to 1778 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp under the guidance of Andreas Bernardus de Quertenmont. On 30 April 1778 he enrolled in Paris at the Ecole de l'Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. He was commissioned by the government to make a large painting of the port of Ostend. The painting was successful and was soon copied and widely distributed through the print he asked the Frenchman Robert Daudet to make after the painting.

After the Brabant Revolution and the forced departure of the Austrians from the Austrian Netherlands in 1789, he decided to board in Ostend the ship Etrusco which set sail for Bengal in 1790. He arrived in Calcutta in 1791. He initially worked as journeyman artist making decorations for the upper middle class in the British factory, ensuring the luster of their festivals and spectacles, restoring works of art and decorating carriages. Solvyns made several trips through the interior of the Indian subcontinent. Inspired by the British Orientalist and Sanskrit scholar Sir William Jones who had founded the Asiatic Society, he devised in 1794 the scheme to create a series of etchings that depict the everyday life of the inhabitants of the subcontinent. This publication was again a commercial failure possibly as a result of the unrest caused by the Napoleonic Wars, its high cost of production and the lack of interest among the local populace. The publication was to become an influential model for the so-called 'Company style' of Indian painting in the 19th century with its drawings of 'occupations' for the British serving in India.

After the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which included the former Austrian Netherlands, was formed in 1814 Solvyns returned to his birthplace Antwerp. William I of the Netherlands appointed him Captain of the Port in recognition of his accomplishments as an artist. Solvyns died in Antwerp on 10 October 1824.

Works A Collection of Two Hundred and Fifty Coloured Etchings: Descriptive of the Manners, Customs and Dresses of the Hindoos, Calcutta, 1796, 1799. A Catalogue of 250 Coloured Etchings; Descriptive of the Manners, Customs, Character, Dress, and Religious Ceremonies of the Hindoos, Calcutta: Mirror Press, 1799 (a 28 page-brochure). Les Hindoûs, 4 vols. Paris: Chez L'Auteur, 1808–1812. The Costume of Indostan [pirated edition], London: Edward Orme [1804-05], 1807.