.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
This striking and important painting of Colonel Polier watching a nautch represents on many levels the dynamic context of art, culture, society, politics and patronage that existed in India in the late 18th century, especially in Awadh. It was painted for a European patron by an Indian artist after a composition by a European artist, probably John Zoffany, and the dancer pictured may be Khanum Jan, who was famous among Mughals and Europeans in Lucknow at the time and whose songs formed the basis of William Hamilton Bird’s Oriental Miscellany, published in Calcutta in 1789.
THE PAINTING AND DETAILS
Colonel Polier is shown reclining on cushions in a spacious room open to a large courtyard. He wears white robes, a gold coat, and a red turban with gold band, in the aristocratic Mughal style of Lucknow at the time. A huqqa with a coiled pipe is to his left. In front of him a female dancer (possibly Khanum Jan, see below) dressed in elegant robes and a similar turban performs a nautch, while a similarly dressed companion claps the rhythm. A second companion, in green robes, stands with them. Sitting cross-legged on the floor are four female musicians, one playing the drums, two playing stringed instruments, and the fourth playing castanets. In the background at left two woman stand watching, one holding a gold and white huqqa cup, the other pushing back an orange-red curtain that hangs down behind an arch. Near them a male attendant carries a silver tray and vessel, possibly a pan box. In the courtyard beyond the ornately carved arches is a tree, a fountain and two buildings, and in the partly cloudy sky is a flight of five birds.
Despite clearly being based on a painting by a European artist, probably the British portraitist John Zoffany (see below), the Indian painter has made it very much his own artistic production, particularly through the palette and meticulous details, which are minutely observed and reward close observation. These include the robes and jewellery of the dancer and musicians, the delicate chevron design on the long-necked stringed instrument, the realistic movement of the drum-player’s fingers and the almost invisible sarus crane standing in the fountain in the courtyard. An interesting element is the fragment of textile visible at the far left hanging over the wall, which has a distinctive chevron design in the borders. An extremely similar textile forms the main backdrop in lot 53 in this sale, the splendid portrait of John Wombwell, and similar textiles also appear in the well-known oil painting by John Zoffany of Colonel Polier with his friends Claude Martin and John Wombwell (Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, see, e.g. Dalrymple 2020, p.29, fig.11). Mary Webster remarked that this type of cloth was peculiar to Lucknow (Webster 2011, p.520).
THE SOURCE AND THE COMPANION PAINTINGS
Another version of the present scene is in the Rietberg Museum, Zurich (2005.83), formerly in the Archer Collection and sold in these rooms 23 September 2005, lot 47. It is identical in almost every way and the painted area is of the same size. The only noticeable differences are the slightly altered headdresses of the dancer and her first companion, and the presence here of a flight of birds in the sky.
It had long been suggested that the source painting on which the Archer/Rietberg example was based was by Tilly Kettle, an English artist who was active in India between 1769 and 1776, including two years in Faizabad between late 1771 and 1773, where Polier also lived from 1773 to 1775 (see Welch 1978, no.36, pp.88-9; Archer 1979, p.85, fig.39; Skelton 1982, p.51, no.90; and later, McInerney 2019, p.72, fig.31). As a result, when the present painting was sold at auction in 1984, the cataloguer followed the attribution of the scholars who had previously opined on the Archer/Rietberg version (Sotheby’s, London, 2 July 1984, lot 187). However, in the discussion of the same painting in the Christie’s catalogue of 23 September 2005, lot 47, it was pointed out that, according to the recorded dates of Tilly Kettle’s departure from Faizabad in early 1773 and Polier’s arrival later in the same year, they did not overlap, and thus it was not possible for Tilly Kettle to have painted this scene of Polier. While some of the paintings in the Polier Albums are based on works by Tilly Kettle, as are some in the albums of his friend Colonel Jean-Baptiste Gentil (1726-1799), such as a group portrait of Shuja al-Dawla with his ten sons, these were based on oil portraits that Kettle had painted for Shuja al-Dawla himself while in Faizabad and which had entered the nawab’s collection. Artists working for Polier and Gentil were later given access to these oil portraits in order to copy their own versions (Weis 2024, p.148).
The Christie’s catalogue entry in 2005 therefore suggested that the Archer/Rietberg version was datable to the 1780s (a dating followed by the Rietberg Museum on their website) and went on to suggest that the artist responsible for the original was John Zoffany (1733-1810), another English artist, active in India between 1783 and 1789, and that Zoffany’s version was painted ca. 1785, at which time Polier was living in Lucknow. Zoffany is known to have worked for Polier while in Lucknow, for a well-known oil painting by him of ca.1786-87 depicts Colonel Polier with his friends Claude Martin and John Wombwell (Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, see, e.g. Dalrymple 2020, p.29, fig.11). Citing stylistic similarities between the Archer/Rietberg version and paintings by Zoffany, especially The Impey Family of 1783, it was argued by Christie’s cataloguer that the source was probably a now-lost oil painting by Zoffany. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones concurred with this reasoning (see Llewellyn-Jones in Markel 2010, p.67). Since the present painting is so close to the Archer/Rietberg version, both stylistically and in terms of the identical composition, the same arguments apply equally here. A further feature worth mentioning is that Polier’s face, and especially his moustache, in the present painting and the Archer/Rietberg version are very similar to his face and moustache in the Zoffany painting of Colonel Polier with his friends Claude Martin and John Wombwell of 1886-7. For detailed information on Zoffany in India, see Webster 2011, pp.444-547).
Katherine Butler Schofield has recently suggested that the dancer pictured is Khanum Jan, a famous performer in Lucknow whose songs were written down by Sophia Plowden, wife of an East India Company officer, while she was in Lucknow in the late 1780s (Butler Schofield 2024, ch.4, and fig.4.4; the album itself is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, MS 280). These songs were then converted into harmonised arrangements for the harpsichord and published by William Hamilton Bird in his famous Oriental Miscellany, published in Calcutta in 1789. Khanum Jan performed her dances in the houses of many Europeans in Lucknow, among whom she was very popular, and Sophia Plowden engaged John Zoffany to paint a portrait of Khanum Jan (Butler Schofield 2024, p.99). Sophia Plowden recorded that Zoffany also produced paintings of Khanum Jan for other Europeans (ibid). It is thus quite plausible that the dancer pictured here is Khanum Jan.
An interesting account of a nautch at Polier’s house is given in the records of the English artist Ozias Humphry, who was in Lucknow for several months in 1786: “I saw for the first time a Nautch …. The grace and attitudes of his principal dancer were exquisitely beautiful surpassing all things of the kind I have ever seen … I was seated with Col. Polier upon a sofa, to whom the dancers addressed their songs of love…” (quoted in Archer 1979, p.196).
In his years in Lucknow, Polier was very active in assembling albums and commissioning paintings from his Indian artists, as he had been when in Faizabad and Delhi (see lot 51). He had retained the services of the artist Mihr Chand (and possibly Dulichand and others) since his Faizabad years, and his albums datable to the 1780s include versions by his Indian artists of Zoffany’s paintings, e.g. a portrait of Prince Mirza Javan Bakht (see Weis 2024, pp.159-60). Although it is not known which artist was responsible for the present painting, two other works rendered in a similar style and also probably based on source compositions by European artists are worth comparing. One is Noblewomen playing chess, in the Musée Guimet, Paris (A. 12112, see Markel 2010, p.49, no.186), the other is Two Nautch girls dancing the Kuharwa in a private collection (see ibid, p.48, no.187). Both have been dated between 1780 and 1800 and attributed to Nevasi Lal, although without giving reasons. A third work that also bears some stylistic resemblance to the present painting and the Archer/Rietberg version was illustrated in Patnaik 1985, cat. 15, pp.72,181, where it was also attributed to Nevasi Lal, although again without giving reasons (Roy and Stronge have suggested caution in assigning paintings to Nevasi Lal on stylistic grounds, especially as nothing is recorded of him after 1775, see Roy 2009, p.94, Stronge in Weis 2024, p.118, fn.4). One of the difficulties of attributing works of this type is that in copying the works of artists such as Kettle and Zoffany, these supremely skilled and adaptable Indian artists consciously departed from their normal styles of painting (Goswamy and Fischer 1987, p.214; Roy 2009, pp.95-6).
Nevertheless, one of the few definitive works by Nevasi Lal, a portrait of Shuja al-Dawla with his sons, after Tilly Kettle, certainly bears considerable stylistic resemblance to the present work (Musée Guimet, Paris, N35571). For further information on Polier and his collection and dance performances, see lot 51 in this sale.
THE PAINTING AND DETAILS
Colonel Polier is shown reclining on cushions in a spacious room open to a large courtyard. He wears white robes, a gold coat, and a red turban with gold band, in the aristocratic Mughal style of Lucknow at the time. A huqqa with a coiled pipe is to his left. In front of him a female dancer (possibly Khanum Jan, see below) dressed in elegant robes and a similar turban performs a nautch, while a similarly dressed companion claps the rhythm. A second companion, in green robes, stands with them. Sitting cross-legged on the floor are four female musicians, one playing the drums, two playing stringed instruments, and the fourth playing castanets. In the background at left two woman stand watching, one holding a gold and white huqqa cup, the other pushing back an orange-red curtain that hangs down behind an arch. Near them a male attendant carries a silver tray and vessel, possibly a pan box. In the courtyard beyond the ornately carved arches is a tree, a fountain and two buildings, and in the partly cloudy sky is a flight of five birds.
Despite clearly being based on a painting by a European artist, probably the British portraitist John Zoffany (see below), the Indian painter has made it very much his own artistic production, particularly through the palette and meticulous details, which are minutely observed and reward close observation. These include the robes and jewellery of the dancer and musicians, the delicate chevron design on the long-necked stringed instrument, the realistic movement of the drum-player’s fingers and the almost invisible sarus crane standing in the fountain in the courtyard. An interesting element is the fragment of textile visible at the far left hanging over the wall, which has a distinctive chevron design in the borders. An extremely similar textile forms the main backdrop in lot 53 in this sale, the splendid portrait of John Wombwell, and similar textiles also appear in the well-known oil painting by John Zoffany of Colonel Polier with his friends Claude Martin and John Wombwell (Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, see, e.g. Dalrymple 2020, p.29, fig.11). Mary Webster remarked that this type of cloth was peculiar to Lucknow (Webster 2011, p.520).
THE SOURCE AND THE COMPANION PAINTINGS
Another version of the present scene is in the Rietberg Museum, Zurich (2005.83), formerly in the Archer Collection and sold in these rooms 23 September 2005, lot 47. It is identical in almost every way and the painted area is of the same size. The only noticeable differences are the slightly altered headdresses of the dancer and her first companion, and the presence here of a flight of birds in the sky.
It had long been suggested that the source painting on which the Archer/Rietberg example was based was by Tilly Kettle, an English artist who was active in India between 1769 and 1776, including two years in Faizabad between late 1771 and 1773, where Polier also lived from 1773 to 1775 (see Welch 1978, no.36, pp.88-9; Archer 1979, p.85, fig.39; Skelton 1982, p.51, no.90; and later, McInerney 2019, p.72, fig.31). As a result, when the present painting was sold at auction in 1984, the cataloguer followed the attribution of the scholars who had previously opined on the Archer/Rietberg version (Sotheby’s, London, 2 July 1984, lot 187). However, in the discussion of the same painting in the Christie’s catalogue of 23 September 2005, lot 47, it was pointed out that, according to the recorded dates of Tilly Kettle’s departure from Faizabad in early 1773 and Polier’s arrival later in the same year, they did not overlap, and thus it was not possible for Tilly Kettle to have painted this scene of Polier. While some of the paintings in the Polier Albums are based on works by Tilly Kettle, as are some in the albums of his friend Colonel Jean-Baptiste Gentil (1726-1799), such as a group portrait of Shuja al-Dawla with his ten sons, these were based on oil portraits that Kettle had painted for Shuja al-Dawla himself while in Faizabad and which had entered the nawab’s collection. Artists working for Polier and Gentil were later given access to these oil portraits in order to copy their own versions (Weis 2024, p.148).
The Christie’s catalogue entry in 2005 therefore suggested that the Archer/Rietberg version was datable to the 1780s (a dating followed by the Rietberg Museum on their website) and went on to suggest that the artist responsible for the original was John Zoffany (1733-1810), another English artist, active in India between 1783 and 1789, and that Zoffany’s version was painted ca. 1785, at which time Polier was living in Lucknow. Zoffany is known to have worked for Polier while in Lucknow, for a well-known oil painting by him of ca.1786-87 depicts Colonel Polier with his friends Claude Martin and John Wombwell (Victoria Memorial, Kolkata, see, e.g. Dalrymple 2020, p.29, fig.11). Citing stylistic similarities between the Archer/Rietberg version and paintings by Zoffany, especially The Impey Family of 1783, it was argued by Christie’s cataloguer that the source was probably a now-lost oil painting by Zoffany. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones concurred with this reasoning (see Llewellyn-Jones in Markel 2010, p.67). Since the present painting is so close to the Archer/Rietberg version, both stylistically and in terms of the identical composition, the same arguments apply equally here. A further feature worth mentioning is that Polier’s face, and especially his moustache, in the present painting and the Archer/Rietberg version are very similar to his face and moustache in the Zoffany painting of Colonel Polier with his friends Claude Martin and John Wombwell of 1886-7. For detailed information on Zoffany in India, see Webster 2011, pp.444-547).
Katherine Butler Schofield has recently suggested that the dancer pictured is Khanum Jan, a famous performer in Lucknow whose songs were written down by Sophia Plowden, wife of an East India Company officer, while she was in Lucknow in the late 1780s (Butler Schofield 2024, ch.4, and fig.4.4; the album itself is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, MS 280). These songs were then converted into harmonised arrangements for the harpsichord and published by William Hamilton Bird in his famous Oriental Miscellany, published in Calcutta in 1789. Khanum Jan performed her dances in the houses of many Europeans in Lucknow, among whom she was very popular, and Sophia Plowden engaged John Zoffany to paint a portrait of Khanum Jan (Butler Schofield 2024, p.99). Sophia Plowden recorded that Zoffany also produced paintings of Khanum Jan for other Europeans (ibid). It is thus quite plausible that the dancer pictured here is Khanum Jan.
An interesting account of a nautch at Polier’s house is given in the records of the English artist Ozias Humphry, who was in Lucknow for several months in 1786: “I saw for the first time a Nautch …. The grace and attitudes of his principal dancer were exquisitely beautiful surpassing all things of the kind I have ever seen … I was seated with Col. Polier upon a sofa, to whom the dancers addressed their songs of love…” (quoted in Archer 1979, p.196).
In his years in Lucknow, Polier was very active in assembling albums and commissioning paintings from his Indian artists, as he had been when in Faizabad and Delhi (see lot 51). He had retained the services of the artist Mihr Chand (and possibly Dulichand and others) since his Faizabad years, and his albums datable to the 1780s include versions by his Indian artists of Zoffany’s paintings, e.g. a portrait of Prince Mirza Javan Bakht (see Weis 2024, pp.159-60). Although it is not known which artist was responsible for the present painting, two other works rendered in a similar style and also probably based on source compositions by European artists are worth comparing. One is Noblewomen playing chess, in the Musée Guimet, Paris (A. 12112, see Markel 2010, p.49, no.186), the other is Two Nautch girls dancing the Kuharwa in a private collection (see ibid, p.48, no.187). Both have been dated between 1780 and 1800 and attributed to Nevasi Lal, although without giving reasons. A third work that also bears some stylistic resemblance to the present painting and the Archer/Rietberg version was illustrated in Patnaik 1985, cat. 15, pp.72,181, where it was also attributed to Nevasi Lal, although again without giving reasons (Roy and Stronge have suggested caution in assigning paintings to Nevasi Lal on stylistic grounds, especially as nothing is recorded of him after 1775, see Roy 2009, p.94, Stronge in Weis 2024, p.118, fn.4). One of the difficulties of attributing works of this type is that in copying the works of artists such as Kettle and Zoffany, these supremely skilled and adaptable Indian artists consciously departed from their normal styles of painting (Goswamy and Fischer 1987, p.214; Roy 2009, pp.95-6).
Nevertheless, one of the few definitive works by Nevasi Lal, a portrait of Shuja al-Dawla with his sons, after Tilly Kettle, certainly bears considerable stylistic resemblance to the present work (Musée Guimet, Paris, N35571). For further information on Polier and his collection and dance performances, see lot 51 in this sale.