Collection of drawings and watercolours from the Raffles Family Collection

Chinese

British Library

circa 1824

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) was a famous colonial administrator and founder of Singapore (1819). He was a passionate student of natural history and amassed a great collection of specimens and drawings. Most of these drawings and watercolours were commissioned while Raffles was Governor of Bencoolen (Bengkulu) in Sumatra, to replace an earlier collection lost in a fire at sea in 1824. The natural history subjects make up about three-quarters of the collection and are by anonymous Chinese (and possibly Malay) artists; the miscellaneous drawings include work by British, Dutch, and Asian artists.

• Artists Include:
• Malay
• British
• Dutch
• Asian
• William Daniell
• William Westall

• Medium: watercolour on paper
• Dimensions: various dimensions
• Art Fund Grant: £114814 ( Total: £386,392; Tax Remission)
• ArtFunded in: 2006
• Vendor: Michael Stewart

Provenance

Commissioned by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1824); by descent in the Raffles family to Michael Stewart; India Office Library (on loan since 1969).

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