Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.5
Gallery Label:
This enigmatic portrait represents Emily and George Mason, children of Bryant Mason, an agent for the East India Company. In 1781, at the age of eighteen, Bryant Mason moved to India and would soon marry and raise his young family there. Painted around 1795, just before Arthur William Devis left India for London, this portrait serves to define Mason’s Anglo-Indian family in opposition to native Indian people. His children are physically removed from their Indian servants and inhabit a self-consciously western interior. Their servants wait outside while Emily dances with a tambourine, and George plays with a miniature musket and military drum. Though perhaps imitating Indian dance, Emily’s tambourine points to her life of carefree leisure, while George’s military toys betray the fact that British supremacy in India was based on conquest and perpetual subjugation. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
