Lot Essay
With the promise of a new and wealthy clientele in Calcutta and Lucknow, Zoffany applied and was permitted to proceed to India in 1782 to exercise his profession of portrait painter. In July 1783 he landed in Madras where he stayed for five weeks. 'Besides completing four portraits in Madras, Zoffany had also explored the neighbourhood, for among the sketches sold up in his studio in May 1811 after his death were a few with Madras subjects. They included a sketch of A Gold Mine on the Coromandel Coast, A Storm near Madras and [among the 'Pictures'] A Romantic View of the Indian Coast ['unfinished']. As later pictures were to prove, Zoffany had at once become enamoured of the Indian countryside - its people, trees and animals - and in sharp contrast to his predecessors he was not merely to portray Indian court life but was boldly to incorporate into group portraits of Europeans the Indian members of their households as well as, at times, to depict Indians in village settings.' (M. Archer, India and British Portraiture, 1770-1825, London, 1979, p.134.)
Zoffany moved on from Madras to Calcutta where he met the artist William Hodges and was introduced to the Govenor-General Warren Hastings. He was soon inundated with commissions. Feted from his arrival in Madras as 'the greatest Painter that ever visited India', he would stay in India for five and a half years, dividing his time between Calcutta and Lucknow.
Apart from a handful of drawings, no Indian landscapes in oil by Zoffany have been traced until the appearance of the present picture. Their existence is known from the description of pictures and sketches in the artist's sale in 1811 (see Lady Victoria Manners and G.C. Williamson, Johann Zoffany R.A., London, 1920, p.290), and from their inclusion in the settings for some of his group portraits (such as Colonel Antoine Polier with his friends Claud Martin, John Wombwell and the artist, Lucknow, Victoria Memorial Museum, Calcutta).
These elusive Indian landscapes would appear to be his most personal work in India, produced for his own interest alongside the commissioned work and showing his fascination for all aspects of his new environment.
The present picture may possibly be identified with lot 77 in the artist's sale in 1811 (see above), although it must be assumed that his work in this genre extended beyond the few landscapes included in this sale and those burnt with his diaries and papers after the death of his widow and daughter from cholera in 1832.
Zoffany moved on from Madras to Calcutta where he met the artist William Hodges and was introduced to the Govenor-General Warren Hastings. He was soon inundated with commissions. Feted from his arrival in Madras as 'the greatest Painter that ever visited India', he would stay in India for five and a half years, dividing his time between Calcutta and Lucknow.
Apart from a handful of drawings, no Indian landscapes in oil by Zoffany have been traced until the appearance of the present picture. Their existence is known from the description of pictures and sketches in the artist's sale in 1811 (see Lady Victoria Manners and G.C. Williamson, Johann Zoffany R.A., London, 1920, p.290), and from their inclusion in the settings for some of his group portraits (such as Colonel Antoine Polier with his friends Claud Martin, John Wombwell and the artist, Lucknow, Victoria Memorial Museum, Calcutta).
These elusive Indian landscapes would appear to be his most personal work in India, produced for his own interest alongside the commissioned work and showing his fascination for all aspects of his new environment.
The present picture may possibly be identified with lot 77 in the artist's sale in 1811 (see above), although it must be assumed that his work in this genre extended beyond the few landscapes included in this sale and those burnt with his diaries and papers after the death of his widow and daughter from cholera in 1832.