We present high-quality J , H and K _ { s } photometry of four Small Magellanic Cloud stellar clusters with intermediate ages in the 1–7 Gyr range ( namely NGC 339 , 361 , 416 and 419 ) .
We obtained deep Color-Magnitude Diagrams to study the evolved sequences and providing a detailed census of the Red Giant Branch ( RGB ) , Asymptotic Giant Branch ( AGB ) and Carbon star populations in each cluster and their contribution to the total cluster light .
We find that in the \sim 5-7 Gyr old clusters AGB stars account for \sim 6 % of the total light in K _ { s } -band , Carbon stars are lacking and RGB stars account for \sim 45 % of the total bolometric luminosity .
These empirical findings are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions .
Finally , we derived photometric metallicities computed by using the properties of the RGB and finding an iron content of [ Fe/H ] = -1.18 , -1.08 , -0.99 and -0.96 dex for NGC 339 , 361 , 416 and 419 respectively .