Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

The adjutant stork is a carrion-eating scavenger which nests on cliffs and trees. These large storks were a common sight of urban Calcutta in the early British period, perching statuesquely along the roof-lines of Government House and other neoclassical monuments of the new city. For the British, the protracted immobility of these birds recalled the static, thoughtful attitude of a military adjutant. Shaikh Zain ud-Din’s accomplished depiction of this specimen, approximately half life-size, captures well its gloomy gravity.