# English Babu (Native Indian Clerk) Holding a Hookah

- Date: c. 1890
- Medium: Gum tempera, graphite, ink, and tin on paper
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Secondary Support: 48 x 29.5 cm (18 7/8 x 11 5/8 in.); Painting only: 45.7 x 28 cm (18 x 11 in.)
- Culture: Eastern India, Bengal, Kolkata, Kalighat
- Credit line: Gift of William E. Ward in memory of his wife, Evelyn Svec Ward
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/2003.145)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/2003.145/2003.145_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This is an archetypal satirical caricature of a native Indian clerk (babu), a Bengali dapper dandy whose fashion sense combines British and Indian mores with dissonant results. Imitating his British masters, he sits cross-legged on a Victorian chair, holding a hookah, sporting a Prince Albert hairstyle, and wearing European buckled shoes. His posture models popular photo studio portraits of the time. Kalighat painters ridiculed these vain babus as foppish nouveau riche.