A man with a wooden leg pours water into the bowl of a begging woman with two children. Coloured aquatint, 1803, after a painter from Thanjavur.

The wooden leg is a contraption with a hook. "The art of painting meets with as little encouragement from the natives of rank and wealth, as its sister science before noticed*. The accompanying is the fac-simile of a painting done by one of their ablest artists, well known by the title of the Tanjore Moochy, and famed throughout the country, not so much for the specimens of his own invention, as for his great skill and ingenuity in imitating the finest miniatures from the European pencil, so as to deceive persons of good taste, if not the connoisseur. The Moochys, or artists of India, usually paint in the stile represented in the present drawing, but in body colour, and sometimes finish their pictures in the delicate and laboured manner of a miniature ; though they at the same time are entirely devoid of truth in colouring and perspective, and constantly err on the side of ornament and gaudiness of dress; excepting where the subject does admit of much finery and decoration, as with the beggars; and then they possess considerable merit as to costume and character. … The beggar in the present drawing is not so, like the hordes of religious mendicants, from choice, but sad necessity, owing to his former misconduct, which has cost him a limb, marked him as an infamous character, and also deprived him of the power of escaping justice if he should attempt new depredations. This is an unlucky (Collary) thief, who, either from the enormity of his offences, or from want of a right understanding with the Polygar of his country, has atoned for them by undergoing summary amputation with hatchet or sword. … That they are not always so happy in the imitative arts, the wooden leg of this poor fellow bears testimony, as it can be of little use to him without other assistance. The perfecting of these happy inventions to alleviate human misfortune, has been reserved for British ingenuity …"—Gold, op. cit.