Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750–1850
On view through June 21, 2026
Yale Center for British Art at Yale University
Curated by Brown University History of Art and Architecture Associate Professor Holly Shaffer and Laurel O. Peterson, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Yale Center for British Art
This major exhibition spans a century of artistic production and reveals the material and technical innovations of the Indian, Chinese, and British artists whose work and lives were shaped by the British East India Company’s global reach. Featuring more than one hundred objects, Painters, Ports, and Profits highlights the beauty and range of the extraordinary artwork produced within the context of one of the most powerful and ruthless corporations in history.
“The exhibition brings to light an astonishing chapter of global art history, when artistic innovation and exchange flourished under the shadow of empire,” says Martina Droth, Paul Mellon Director of the Yale Center for British Art. “It tells the story of direct encounters between artists from different continents and traditions, who responded to one another by experimenting with new materials and methods.”
Between 1750 and 1850, the East India Company’s growing commercial, military, and political operations linked an incredibly varied group of artists - amateurs, soldiers, and professionals- into a vast network that stretched from London to Calcutta (Kolkata) to Canton (Guangzhou). As goods, people, and ideas circulated through the Company’s networks, artists experimented with papers, pigments, and methods, adapting techniques from different traditions to develop a striking visual language that connected art to the expanding global economy.
“We are excited to take visitors on a journey to ports and trading cities across India and China where artists produced captivating and innovative works of art,” said exhibition curators Peterson and Shaffer. “The period of the East India Company is one in which art and business intersected. There is a profound tension between the ventures of a global corporation and the works of beauty created by the artists in its orbit. With technical brilliance, these artists ingeniously fused traditions and materials together to develop new ways of making, picturing, and selling.”
Years in development, the preparations for Painters, Ports and Profits included extensive original research and careful technical study by curators and conservators at the Yale Center for British Art in collaboration with conservation scientists at Yale’s institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage. The resulting exhibition illuminates Yale’s deep holdings of Asian art, showcasing many exceptional works that have hardly ever or never been displayed.
Exhibition Catalogue
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue edited by Laurel O. Peterson and Holly Shaffer, published by the Yale Center for British Art, and distributed by Yale University Press. The catalogue Painters, Ports, and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750-1850 offers a richly illustrated account of the intertwined histories of art, trade, and empire. Featuring more than one hundred objects drawn primarily from the YCBA’s collection, including architectural drawings, watercolors, and hand-colored aquatints, the catalog critically reconsiders the vibrant creative exchanges between artists in India, China, and Britain during a period driven by ruthless commercial and colonial expansion. The catalogue brings together essays by an international group of seventeen scholars, curators, and conservators, including HIAA PhD Candidate Margaret Masselli, to shed new light on Indian, Chinese, and British artists who practiced at the confluence of art, commerce and the British East India Company in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Image credits:
Banner: Artist once known, Yellow-eyed Babbler (Chrysomma sinense) Perched on Chinese Hat Plant (Holmskioldia sanguinea), ca. 1770, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Inset: Artist once known, Breadnut (Artocarpus camansi), ca. 1825, Yale Center for British Art