内容摘要：It said the steps put pressure on the armed group to release the 58 hostages still held in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

It said the steps put pressure on the armed group to release the 58 hostages still held in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

Most studies of Company painting focus on British patronage, but in south India, the French were commissioning Indian artists as early as 1727.A striking example is a set of 48 paintings from Pondicherry - uniform in size and style - showing the kind of work French collectors sought by 1800.

One painting (above) shows 10 men in hats and loincloths rowing through surf. A French caption calls them nageurs (swimmers) and the boat a chilingue.Among the standout images are two vivid scenes by an artist known as B, depicting boatmen navigating the rough Coromandel coast in stitched-plank rowboats.With no safe harbours near Madras or Pondicherry, these skilled oarsmen were vital to European trade, ferrying goods and people through dangerous surf between anchored ships and the shore.

Company paintings often featured natural history studies, portraying birds, animals, and plants - especially from private menageries.As seen in the DAG show, these subjects are typically shown life-size against plain white backgrounds, with minimal surroundings - just the occasional patch of grass. The focus remains firmly on the species itself.

Ashish Anand, CEO of DAG, says the the latest show proposes Company paintings as the "starting point of Indian modernism".

Anand says this "was the moment when Indian artists who had trained in courtly ateliers first moved outside the court (and the temple) to work for new patrons".Often he would wake up to the rhythmic sound of his father at work at his potter's wheel.

"My mother and I would get up at four in the morning and walk for miles every day to get clay."Used for storing water, clay pots were a common item in Indian households in the 1970s.

But the income from making pots was meagre and the profession also came with social stigma."Nobody wanted to their daughter married in a potter's family," Mr Prajapati says. "They feared she will be burdened with endless labour."