Asia had long held a fascination for Europeans, although actual contact was generally limited to trade. Spices had been imported from the East since ancient times, joined in the seventeenth century by large quantities of raw silk, tea and porcelain.

In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries British overseas expansion was focused on North America and the West Indies. It was only with the loss of the American colonies in 1783 that attention was turned to Asia and Africa, with the emphasis now on commercial and political conquest rather than permanent settlement.

Britain’s East India Company took a more aggressive military role in India in the 1780s and 1790s. By the early nineteenth century the Company ruled over forty million people on the subcontinent. However, trade with China was still firmly controlled by powerful Chinese merchants, and Britain was only beginning to develop commercial interests in South-East Asia.

Many British artists spent time in India, often with great success. Only a few ventured further East. They attempted to make the new and unfamiliar scenery of Asia comprehensible to Western eyes by using familiar formats. However, the subtlety and variety of their responses suggests something of the complexity of British perceptions of Asia before the development of a more oppressive outlook in the Victorian age.

This display has been devised by curator Martin Myrone

British Art Displays 1500-2004