Mucawwir

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This article is an extract from

THE TRIBES and CASTES of BENGAL. By H.H. RISLEY, INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE, OFFICIER D'ACADÉMIE FRANÇAISE. Ethnographic Glossary. CALCUTTA: Printed at the Bengal Secretariat Press. 1891. .

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Mucawwir

Portrait painting has never reached even a tolerable state of excellence in India. By strict Muhammadans it is considered sinful to sit for, or portray, a likeness. Copyists, who have acquired a wonderful skill in transferring to ivory the lineaments of a photograph, or an oil painting, are to be found in Delhi and other cities, but to paint from life is a talent rarely met with.

In Dacca there is a Muhammadan family, who by birth are painters, but their pictures, wanting in animation and individuality, bear nevertheless a fair but formal likeness of the person delineated.