Portrait of a Sri Lankan Tamil 1806 - 1807

This delicate drawing of a Sri Lankan Tamil man was made around the turn of the 19th century by the British artist Samuel Daniell, using graphite and watercolor on paper. The support is quite thin, and the artist's marks are direct and unlabored. Daniell was one of many artists who traveled to different corners of the British Empire, making images of the local population. The pencil lines create a sense of immediacy, as though the artist was sketching quickly. The graphite provides a base for the translucent washes of color, which lend a subtle vibrancy to the man's features and clothing. There's an undeniable tension between the intimacy of the portrait and the context of colonial expansion, which would have involved the exercise of power by the British, and the co-option of local labor, to extract resources from the land. This work is a reminder that even the simplest, most direct images carry complex social and political meanings.