In 1786, Humphry spent about seven months painting the Nawab and his family, including the Sahibzada, Wazir Ali Khan (his adopted son), and ministers at the Court of Oudh in Lucknow. He submitted an account of 47,000 rupees for the portraits which was approved by the Resident Colonel Harper. The Nawab was so pleased that he offered an extra 3,000 rupees in order to make the sum total 50,000 rupees. Humphry was paid 5,000 rupees and given a bond for the remainder, made payable at the end of the month, but the debt was never fully recovered. After copious correspondence, Humphry only ever managed to collect a few hundred pounds. Archer (supra) records that 'the Nawab's little son, the "Saib Zada", had sat to Humphry on 28 May. He waswearing an orange and white dress, a blue nawabi turban and was seated against pink striped cushions. The artist was greatly impressed by the child's superb manners. Although only five years old "he received me" he wrote, "with all the ceremony of the Shah Zada". The small child was already learning to write both Arabic and Persian.'
Another version, also of 1786, with address 'Lucknow', formerly in the collection of the artist's illegitimate son William Upcutt Humphry, is now in a Continental private collection. There are two versions of a
miniature of the sitter's father Asaf-ud-Duala, Nawab Wazir of Oudh (d. 1797) by Humphry: one formerly in the collection of William Upcutt
Humphry, and later in the Edward Grosvenor Paine collection, sold
Sotheby's, London, 4 December 1985, lot 213; the other formerly in a
private collection, sold Sotheby's, London, 16 April 2008, lot 48.