Calcutta, once a cluster of three villages, bloomed into a city of palaces in the 18th century, attracting foreign traders and local aristocracy alike. Artists flocked to the city, inspired by the potential patronage, and the Western artists who arrived in the early 19th century helped to create a melting pot of artistic sub-styles from across Europe. The artists who followed the early and more successful ones were not as significant. There was a decline in artistic standards. Hence, the city of Calcutta became safer for the local aristocracy owing to successful security measures taken by the new rulers. This helped to attract the attention of local artists towards the city as well. Introduction of printing industry in Calcutta, in this period, also played an important role in attracting and encouraging local art- talent. These local artists came both from upper class Brahmins and other important castes besides traditional artisans engaged in gold-smelting (Swarnakars) and wood-working (Sutradhars) as well as those traditionally employed in painting thematic and narrative scrolls while singing in public. They belonged to a caste known as patuas.

These local painters were inspired by the rich oils executed by European artists, but they were not conversant with the grammar of naturalistic painting of the west. Thus, the use of ‘perspective’ still eluded them, but they resolved the issues of volume and perspective in their own way. The result was an organic evolution of style and visual language that was at once simple and charming. The Calcutta School of Art, established in 1854, had an obvious impact on this genre, and its influence can be seen in some of the paintings that are now widely referred to as belonging to the Early Bengal School. In some of the oils, one distinctly finds the artists experimenting with modern off-centre compositions, use of perspective, and architectural elements. Religious themes were prevalent in most of the works, and the paintings were by and large unsigned and undated. There is hardly any documentation on the Early Bengal oils, but it is widely held that they were commissioned by the rich aristocratic Hindu families of the city.

The trend in Bengal persisted until the early twentieth century, and several artists from the Calcutta Art School, especially ones belonging to artisan families, participated in this interaction leading to further Europeanisation and perfection of style. However, the genre gradually declined towards the close of the nineteenth century as the paintings lost much of their initial charm. The other possible reason for the gradual demise of this genre may be attributed to the popularity of the academic style of painting as propounded by the Calcutta Art School and the gradual ascendancy of the Bengal School at the turn of the century.