4^th May, 2021, marked  the 172^nd Birthday of ‘Jyotidada,’ as Rabindranath Tagore would lovingly call his elder brother Jyotirindranath Tagore (1849-1925). He was not so much celebrated as an artist and a painter as he was for being a playwright, a musician, a composer, an editor and a scholar. Born in Jorosanko, in Calcutta, in the year 1849, Jyotirindranath completed his primary education at home; he was taught by his elder brother Hemendranath.

He began to pursue the discipline of Fine Arts and soon his studies escalated to understanding theatre. He left his education and focused on stage productions at his family home, Jorosanko.

In 1867, while he was staying with his elder brother, Satyendranath, in Ahmedabad, Jyotirindranath learnt many finer skills. This was the time he started practicing art more conscientiously. He painted and drew no lesser than two thousand sketches, all of which are preserved at Rabindra Bharati University.

He painted an array of portraits, was avid portrait artist, He almost exclusively worked on pencil on paper. He drew everyone in the Tagore family and people who would visit him at Calcutta or at his Morabadi Hill residence in Ranchi.

Among these portraitures twenty-five drawings were selectedby Sir Emery walker of London. These exquisite portrait drawings were then printed in 1914, using collotype method.

Collotype is generally used to retain absolute fidelity of the originals. It is a dichromate-based photographic process which gives the feeling and texture of the original artwork. If one runs their finger over these prints, it would be a pretty similar experience to that of touching the originals. The method was introduced by Alphonse Poitevin back in 1855. It was useful to print images in a wide variety of tones, and for that halftone screens were no more needed. Most of the collotypes were produced between the 1870s and 1920s.

The album of Jyotirindranath Tagore’s art carried a delicate Foreword by William Rothenstein. This book of portrait collection was titled "Twenty-five Collotypes from the Original Drawings by Jyotirindranath Tagore", 1914.