Joanna de Silva by William Wood in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2022

Title: Joanna de Silva

Artist: William Wood (British, 1769–1810)

Date: 1792

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 30 × 25 in. (76.2 × 63.5 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Purchase, Bequest of Mary Jane Dastich, in memory of her husband, General Frank Dastich, by exchange and Charles B. Curtis Fund, 2020

Accession Number: 2020.234


Painted at a time of rapidly expanding British colonialism, this is an exceptionally rare independent likeness of an identifiable Indian woman by an eighteenth-century English artist. As identified by her portrait’s inscription, Joanna de Silva was a native of Bengal, in eastern India, and was employed as a nursemaid in the family of an officer with the British East India Company. She later accompanied members of the family back to England, where she sat for this portrait. The sitter wears the delicate Indian textiles that were sought after around the globe in the eighteenth century.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/846945