This brass model of a soldier riding a camel is one of the so-called Vizagapatam Toy Soldiers – a mysterious set of late 18th century pieces named after the city on India’s eastern coast where they were believed to have been manufactured. It has not yet been established who they were made for.
The set is unusual in Indian sculpture for its humorous caricatures of the military, with soldiers given oversized heads and weapons to exaggerate their pomposity and swagger. Examples are found in collections at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the V&A in London and the Sandringham and Madras museums in India.