Woman Striking a Man with a Broom

A woman in a white sari with a black border grips a kneeling man by the hair and raises a broom over her head. He wears a black coat and a red shawl and has his hair neatly parted, the look of a Calcutta babu. The background is bare paper.

Gods were the Kalighat painters’ main subject, but they also drew their city: English rulers, Bengali babus, servants, and quarrels at home. They returned often to the changing position of women, and the scenes are read as social comment, made with satirical humour.

The painting is all outline and a few flat colours on bare paper, the Kalighat formula. Pictures like this were made cheaply, quickly and in large numbers. It is still funny.