| William Carpenter Junior was born in London around 1818. His mother was the well-regarded portrait painter Margaret Sarah Carpenter, his father a bookdealer and art historian. He made his debut as a painter at the Royal Academy Exhibition in London in 1840-1841, and continued to presents his work at various British venues for the next forty years. He died in 1899. |
| The highlight of his life was the seven years from 1850 until 1857 that he spent in India. He travelled throughout the country, apparently often in Indian clothing, painting scenes and people. He spent time in Calcutta, Bombay, Ceylon and Punjab. His favorite place was Kashmir, where he stayed from 1854-1855. There he made portraits of some of the same nautch girls (dancers) that later photographers would immortalize in albumen. William Carpenter even visited Afghanistan, and finally moved south to Rajputana. |
| Upon his return to England in 1857 - just in time to avoid the war that began that year - he exhibited his Indian paintings at the Royal Academy. They were displayed for the next eight years. Many were concurrently reproduced in The Illustrated London News as special supplementary lithographs.
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