One viewed the exhibition, The Art of Bengal, which ends on April 21 at The Harrington Street Arts Centre, with a great sense of wonder, sadly not unalloyed with a great sense of loss. It is difficult not to be excited by this celebration of two centuries of Bengal art under one roof, 200 of the 400 works from this state in the possession of the Delhi Art Gallery being on display. The experience was no different from that of stepping into a well laid-out museum, a museum dedicated to the art of this unfortunate state, which still lacks one. Each work from the 19th century onwards stood out like a gem in this splendid gallery, but they were fated to be dispersed all over the country and beyond (save the ones not meant to leave our shores), as they were up for sale. What should have been part of a museum collection, would over the years be in the possession of collectors, perhaps unnamed, as was the case with the 12 Rabindranath Tagore paintings that belonged to the Dartington Hall Trust of the United Kingdom and were sold in an auction at Sotheby’s in May 2010.

This exhibition brought back to mind the Art of Bengal exhibition put together by Ganesh Haloi as part of the Metropolitan Festival of Art in 1998, when one felt the frisson of viewing for the first time original iconic works seen mostly in reproduction, like Abanindranath’s Bharat Mata and the Passing of Shah Jahan, Ramkinkar’s Binodini and Jamini Roy’s forays into post-impressionism. One admits that one experienced the same thrill when confronted with this collection that condensed 200 years of art history into an hour-long experience.

One saw again that brilliant monochromatic nude by Ranada Prasad Gupta, who had rebelled against Ernest Binfield Havell, the principal of the Government School of Art in Calcutta, who preferred Indian models for the study of art to the prevailing Western ones. Gupta was all for academic realism and such was his determination to pursue this style that he opened the Jubilee Art School in a tent on the Maidan, and Hemen Mazumdar was one of his students. One had seen the work in 1998, and one now perhaps saw it for the last time in an exhibition.

Collector and writer Radha Prasad Gupta was so impressed by the 1998 exhibition that in spite of his initial reluctance to loan any work from his valuable collection, he finally allowed a Kalighat pat of Jhansi Rani on horseback to be displayed. The Kalighat pats at the current exhibition were possibly from the collection of a foreigner and their worth was enhanced by the footnotes, occasionally humorous, in a flowing hand that the collector had added to each painting. About the secular painting of the Assembly of Jackals, he wrote: “This is not a picture of the Hindoo god.”

The lithograph portrait of Raja Ram Mohan Roy was seen in the past exhibition and it was seen here as well. The same holds for some of the early Bengal oils. Draupadi’s Vastraharan was notable for its dark and buxom eponymous heroine (she is so plain in this painting that one wonders why so many men fell for her) and the flight of arches soaring dramatically over the scene of the outrage.

Olinto Ghilardi’s painting of the river came as a surprise. He was the man who had formally trained Abanindranath in art. The delicacy of Prahlad Karmakar’s (Prakash Karmakar’s father) brushwork in the small mother and child painting demonstrated the local artists’ mastery of academic realism. Skilled draughtsman that Bikash Bhattacharjee was, at times he excelled himself, as in the large pen-and-ink drawing of the old woman obsessed with her self-image. Stopping short of turning it into a caricature, the artist in him seems to sympathize with this Norma Desmond-type character holding an ornate mirror in her gnarled hands.

We catch a glimpse of Rabindranath Tagore’s wicked sense of humour in Banglar Bagh (picture), a tiny drawing of a smirking Royal Bengal tiger. It is an intriguing picture because the target of his gibe is not clear.

Culturally and historically important as this show was, the weighty book that accompanied it increased its value since the entire collection of the gallery and more have found place here. Just one incorrect place name would catch the eye of any Calcuttan. Darjipara is mentioned both in the book and in the timeline as Darjitala. This gentrified red light district was known for its tailors.