Maratha and British Arts in Western India, 1760-1820
Researcher: Holly Shaffer
Professor Shaffer's project conceptualizes the intersection of art, diplomacy, war, prestige, and commerce in western India as "graft”—a term that acknowledges the violent and creative processes of suturing arts, and losing and gaining goods, as well as the shifting dynamics among agents who assembled such materials. By tracing grafted arts from multiple vantage points—Maratha and British, artist and patron, soldier and collector—the book charts the methods of empire-building that transformed artistic production and collection in western India and from there across India and Britain.
