Balthazard Solvyns talented European artist arrived in Calcutta in 1791. He survived as a petty trader in art materials who also decorated coaches and palanquins. Solvyns did not meet the kind of success that the Daniells had received. ‘Les Hindous’ was created on Solvyns return to France in 1804. The four-volume set was exhaustive in its study of the castes of Calcutta. From banias and numerous sub-castes of Brahmins to nautch girls, Solvyns wrote and drew like an anthropologist documenting the attitudes and lives of a whole people.

Solvyns showers attention on the differentiation of dress and on the tools of the trade. Les Hindous offers to the art lovers the copper plate engraving by Francois Balthazard Solvyns, which deals with 19th century Calcutta. The black town alternately known as city of palaces which was non-European and dominated by Hindu artisan castes.