Asif ud-Daulah, by John Zoffany, c.1785-90

"A PORTRAIT OF THE NAWAB OF OUDH, ASAF-UD-DAULA, LUCKNOW, INDIA, CIRCA 1785-90; watercolour and gouache on card, with a seated figure in relaxed pose, dressed in white with a jewelled turban, necklaces and bazubands, his waist band supporting a fine rock crystal hilted dagger, unframed.

The SOTHEBYS CATALOGUE NOTE: Inscriptions: in ink on the reverse in Urdu: 'the likeness of Asaf Ud-Daula'
This painting is after a portrait of Asaf-ud-Daula by the renowned German artist Johann Zoffany (1733-1810), completed in 1784 and now in the India Office Library (Archer 1979, no.89, p.147). Both paintings exhibit similar details, such as the striped green and cream cushions, the lowering background and various features of Asaf-ud-Daula's jewellery and costume.

Zoffany trained in Germany and Rome, later making his way to Britain where he began a stellar career as a humble drapery painter, rising to Royal patronage and in 1769 his career in Britain was capped by a personal recommendation from King George to be a founding member of the Royal Academy. Falling out of favour with the Queen, and lured by the financial promise of India, Zoffany relocated in 1783, spent his first month in Madras, moved to Calcutta and from thence, following in Tilly Kettle's footsteps, travelled to Lucknow and the court of the Nawab of Oudh, Asaf-ud-Daula.
A jolly character, if an apparently ineffectual potentate, Asaf-ud-Daula was described in a letter from Lewis Ferdinand Smith as "mild in manners, generous to extravagance, and engaging in his conduct; but he has no great mental powers though his heart is good...he is fond of lavishing his treasures on gardens, palaces, horses, elephants, and above all, on... all sorts of European manufactures... [including the] elegant paintings of a Lorraine or a Zophani (sic)... all he looks to is that there be money sufficient for his private expenses." (Archer 1979, p.144-145). Despite this contemporary description of the Nawab as a bungling glutton, ghazals praising his generosity to the people, especially during the famine of 1783-84, were still being recited during the nineteenth-century (Bayly 1990, p.82, no.78).

After Tilly Kettle's stint in Oudh from 1771 to 1773, it became the fashion for local artists to copy European portraits. Indeed Zoffany's paintings were widely imitated even whilst he practised, as indicated in the list of effects belonging to a European in 1801 that included "seven from pictures by Zoffany" (Archer 1979,p.143). The present portrait is a tribute, both to Zoffany's fame and his expertise."

Source : Columbia University