We cannot be sure where our story begins, since it is likely that the earliest Indian devotional prints have not survived. 

During the early 1800’s several book publishers set up small presses in the North Calcutta neighborhood of Battala.  By the mid 1800’s Battala was a center for Bengali presses, and for the woodblock engravers whose engravings illustrated Battala books.  By at least the 1840’s several Battala engravers began to make large individual prints of Hindu gods and goddesses. 

During this same time, in the South Calcutta neighborhood of Kalighat, local artists made watercolors of Hindu gods and goddesses to sell near the Kalighat Kali temple, a major pilgrimage site.  Many of these were painted over thin lithographed outlines which largely disappeared in the process of painting.  By the mid 1850’s Becharam Das Dutta, an exceptional Kalighat painter, began to give primary importance to his lithographed drawings, and secondary importance to their coloring.  Though classified as Kalighat paintings, these are, at the same time, India’s earliest hand-colored lithographs. 

Lithography eventually became the main technique used to produce Hindu devotional images.  Early lithographs, of the 1870’s, were printed in black, and highlights in one or two colors were added by hand.  Hand-coloring became very sophisticated by the early 1880’s, and color lithographs, printed from a succession of litho stones, each inked in a different color, appeared by the late 1880’s.

Very few early Indian devotional prints have survived, due to acidic paper, India’s extreme humidity, and a general lack of care.  We have formed an important collection of the earliest examples.  We are also happy to have had the opportunity to put together substantial collections of early Hindu god and goddess prints for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  Prints from our collection have also been acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, British Museum, and other public collections.

Our goal is to bring greater awareness to this genre of Indian art.  To this end, we have worked with the Print Center New York and the Davis Museum at Wellesley College on the exhibition Seeing God in Prints (2009-2010), and have collaborated on several publications, most important, with Asian Studies scholar and author Richard H. Davis on the book Gods in Print, Masterpieces of India’s Mythological Art (Mandala, 2012), and with Laura Weinstein, Curator of South Asian Art, MFA, Boston, on the book Divine Color, Hindu Prints from Modern Bengal (MFA Boston 2025).  We are also very happy to have worked with filmmaker Rachel Fedde, whose award winning documentary Five Faces of Shiva (2018) explores the history of Indian devotional prints.

Most important, we hope these prints will bring the same joy to you that they have brought to us.