Mary Impey

Mary, Lady Impey (née Reade; 2 March 1749 – 20 February 1818) was an English natural historian and patron of the arts in Bengal.

The wife of Sir Elijah Impey, the Chief Justice of Bengal, she established a menagerie in Calcutta and commissioned Indian artists to paint the various creatures.

[1] On 18 January 1768, at Hammersmith parish church (Fulham North Side) then just outside London, she married a thirty-six-year-old barrister, Elijah Impey, and over the next five years, bore him four children.

[2] In 1773, Elijah Impey was knighted and made chief justice of Fort William in Bengal and the couple moved to India, leaving the children with their father's brother in Hammersmith.

In 1775, having settled in Fort William, Impey started a collection of native birds and animals on the extensive gardens of the estate, off Burying Ground Road (now Park Street), which had formerly been that of Henry Vansittart, governor of Bengal from 1760 to 1764.

[2] Beginning in 1777, Impey and her husband hired local artists to paint birds, animals and native plants, life-sized where possible, and in natural surrounds.

The Impey family in Calcutta, India in 1783, by Johan Zoffany . Mary's daughter, Marian Impey, is shown dancing to Indian music.
A Dwarf Flying Squirrel hanging from a Kuru Creeper , from the Impey Album, Shaikh Zayn al-Din, c. 1780, 20 7/8 in. x 29 17/32 in. (53 cm x 75 cm)
Orange-headed thrush , Geokichla citrina , one of the paintings from which Latham described the species [ 3 ] [ 4 ]
A painting of the now extinct pink-headed duck made by Bhawani Das.