A well-known series of miniature figures produced in India from unfired clay, appropriately clothed and in many instances represented carrying out their respective secular or ritual duties, enjoyed a period of particular popularity on the world stage in the nineteenth century when they were appropriated as illustrative devices in museum displays and international exhibitions. Over the previous half-century or more they had emerged as products of a dynamic industry that responded to changes in taste as well as religious and artistic practice within Indian society, before being taken up by the West to serve new colonial imperatives. There they received perhaps their most enthusiastic reception at the India Museum, established in the headquarters of the East India Company in London in the early 1800s, and surviving beyond the suppression of the Company itself until they were dispersed to a number of other institutions in 1879. From an early appearance at the Great Exhibition in 1851, the figures also became a regular feature of the international exhibitions of the latter part of the century. Initially they celebrated the traditional crafts and practices of India but gradually were recruited to communicate other messages of Western industrial dominance and perceived artistic and industrial superiority. Although comparatively few of these figures survive intact in Western collections, the history of their considerable impact on the European stage can be enlarged upon with the aid of the documentary record.

印度用未烧制的粘土制作了一系列著名的微型人物，这些人物穿着得体，在许多情况下表现出履行各自的世俗或仪式职责，在十九世纪的世界舞台上享有特别受欢迎的时期，当时它们被挪用为博物馆展示和国际展览中的说明性装置。在过去的半个多世纪里，它们已经成为一个充满活力的行业的产物，该行业响应了印度社会品味以及宗教和艺术实践的变化，然后被西方用来服务于新的殖民要求。在那里，他们在印度博物馆受到了最热情的接待，该博物馆建于 1800 年代初期，位于伦敦东印度公司总部。并在公司本身的压制下幸存下来，直到 1879 年被分散到许多其他机构。从早期出现在 1851 年的万国博览会开始，这些人物也成为了 1851 年后期国际展览的常规特征。世纪。最初，他们庆祝印度的传统工艺和实践，但逐渐被招募来传达西方工业主导地位以及感知的艺术和工业优势的其他信息。尽管这些人物在西方收藏中完好无损地保存下来的相对较少，但他们对欧洲舞台产生巨大影响的历史可以借助文献记录来扩大。这些人物也成为本世纪后半叶国际展览的常规特色。最初，他们庆祝印度的传统工艺和实践，但逐渐被招募来传达西方工业主导地位以及感知的艺术和工业优势的其他信息。尽管这些人物在西方收藏中完好无损地保存下来的相对较少，但他们对欧洲舞台产生巨大影响的历史可以借助文献记录来扩大。这些人物也成为本世纪后半叶国际展览的常规特色。最初，他们庆祝印度的传统工艺和实践，但逐渐被招募来传达西方工业主导地位以及感知的艺术和工业优势的其他信息。尽管这些人物在西方收藏中完好无损地保存下来的相对较少，但他们对欧洲舞台产生巨大影响的历史可以借助文献记录来扩大。