The art of opium: How the intoxicating drug and its trade captivated artists

In the 1850s, a British official posted in India described a most “extraordinary and wonderful” feat of agricultural production: the extraction of a liquid, from a plant grown in the Gangetic plains, that yielded the imperial treasury a “gross revenue of three million and a half pounds sterling” – nearly 281 million pounds today.

Captain Walter Stanhope Sherwill, a revenue surveyor in colonial Bengal and a member of the Royal Native Infantry, was describing the laborious process of manufacturing opium, a drug that, among other commodities, built the fortunes of the British empire. Sherwill laid out his fascination for in detail in his illustrated book, The Indian Opium: Its Mode of Preparation for the Chinese Market, based on his observations at the East India Company’s Patna factory.

It wasn’t just opium agents who were captivated by the drug. Artists of the time were equally fascinated by opium and its trade. By the mid-19th century, as the opium trade drew global scrutiny, art often turned to caricature, critiquing the continued financial dependence of the British on a harmful drug.

Scenes from a factory

The British began exporting Indian opium to China around 1780, after establishing a trading foothold in that kingdom. In 1796, China prohibited the import and consumption of the...

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