During the late nineteenth century, Bengal witnessed a remarkable rise of lithographic printing, which rapidly established itself as an influential medium within visual culture. A leading pioneer of this development was Annada Prasad Bagchi of the Calcutta Art Studio. The lithographs produced by the studio often depicted Indian gods and goddesses which illuminated the homes of a growing urban middle class. These prints soon travelled beyond Bengal when the foreign agents took them to Germany, where they were used to produce oleographs. The growing popularity of these prints in the Indian markets encouraged manufacturers to adapt the figures of deities onto porcelain figurines. Consequently, porcelain figurines of gods and goddesses gained prominence as a popular art. In Bengal, these imported porcelains acquired immense demand among Indian households. This book traces that fascinating journey of how lithographic prints of gods and goddesses crossed geographical and cultural boundaries, were reimagined in porcelain, and returned to India to achieve widespread acclaim.

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