Rare 18th century aquatint and etched print, produced in Calcutta

Moffat, James. Vexation and Strife.

€ 7,500.00

Very rare aquatint and etching by James Moffat, with a rare Calcutta imprint. The subject of the print is a subtle caricature of domestic strife over the intoxication of a (supposedly) British colonial. The only other known copy is described as follows by Yale's Lewis Warpole Library catalogue: "In the center of the image a woman, dressed in a short shift, angrily pulls a bottle from the hand of a drunken man. The man sits at an oval drop-leaf table with his right fist raised and a cigar hanging from his mouth as smoke billows around his head. He holds onto a bottle with his left hand, a glass and pile of cigars at his elbow. The woman standing over the table on the left angrily points with her left hand to a clock on the wall which shows the time as 5:05. In the background on the left, a dark-faced, cloaked figure stands before the curtained doorway on the left; the double doors on the right are shut. Also on the table is a lit candle in a glass globe; an overturned pitcher pours onto the floor in the foreground".

James Moffat (1775-1815) was a Scottish engraver who worked in India. He arrived in Calcutta in 1789, joining the "Calcutta Gazette" in 1797. Moffat is mainly known for his topographical views of India, but he also produced several satirical prints such as the present specimen. He "supplemented his income by producing satires of Anglo-Indians (British colonials who spent time in India) at a time when these were becoming increasingly popular" (Smylitopoulos, p. 12). Most of these satirical scenes were sent by the amateur artist to London to be engraved and published, but the present example with its Calcutta imprint in the signature proves the exception to this rule.

Moffat's topographical views of cities, buildings, rivers and other landscape features are rare, and his satirical domestic scenes are even rarer. The only other copy that can be traced in institutional possession that that in the Lewis Warpole Library at Yale University, and it almost never appears in the trade, with only two records in historical auction results (one in 1933 and one in 2020, possibly the present copy).

Two small tears, one in the top margin and the other in the bottom, neither affecting the illustration. Very slightly stained in the margins. Overall in very good condition.