Bhawani Das’s Great Indian Fruit Bat

The pioneering 18th-century Indian artist combined eastern and western methods of paintingAt first glance, this fruit bat depicted in delicate detail against a background of bare English watercolour paper might be a European natural history drawing. However, its creator, Bhawani Das, had originally been trained in the luminously coloured, exquisitely detailed and patterned paintings of the Mughal tradition of south Asia, qualities that all leave their mark on his watercolour, created between 177