British Identity Within the Indian Setting in Zoffany’s Portraits
Rose Akcan - November 9, 2022
Johann Zoffany, Major William Palmer with His Second Wife, the Mughal Princess Bibi Faiz Bakhsh, 1785, oil on canvas, height 101.5 x W 127 cm, The British Library
Johann Zoffany (1733-1810) was a German painter in high demand by a number of European patrons in the late eighteenth century. He studied in Germany and Italy; traveled to England, where he became popular among the royal family; and eventually gained the patronage of King George III. Before setting out for India in 1783, where he would remain until 1789 working as a portraitist, Zoffany learned from English painter William Hogarth. Zoffany’s journey to India was fuelled by hope to reinvigorate his career, although he was also driven by his intellectual curiosity and yearning for new experiences. The painter demonstrated an affinity for family and genre portraits, and his work includes self-portraits, depictions of upscale domestic life, and views of an emerging British empire in India. One such view is Zoffany’s 1785 oil on canvas, Major Palmer with his bibi Faiz Bakhsh. Left unfinished — likely due to the artist’s arrival in Lucknow shortly before Palmer departed for Calcutta — Zoffany’s representation of Palmer in a relaxed state amidst his Indian family and attendants serves as a glimpse into his identity as a British military general assimilating into Mughal lifestyle.
The Palmer portrait depicts William Palmer of the East India Company as the focal point. Set in an Indian courtyard at night, fitted with banyan and plantain trees, Palmer resides in the center of the image. Palmer’s slightly reclined stance communicates a sense of comfort and pleasure supported by his Indian servants and family members. His stature is relaxed, and his gaze attentive while fondly glancing down at his wife holding their baby. The woman seated on the right of Palmer is his second wife, Mughal princess Faiz Bakhsh, a wife of high class from Awadh. She was considered a “begum,” a title given to married Muslim women of high class, and a descendant of Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor of India, who commissioned the Taj Mahal. The pair were together for thirty-five years and had three children, all of whom are present in this painting. Immediately, it is clear that Palmer is the central focus of this scene based on his posture in relation to the accompanying figures. His outward appearance is the only remnant of British life in this scene: he wears a red waistcoat with a white collared shirt underneath. Zoffany’s stylistic positioning of these figures, specifically Palmer’s leaning pose, draws the viewer’s attention to the British patron and postulates questions surrounding his identity.
Each individual’s stance points to their foundational roles within the Anglo-Indian domestic scene. Aside from the princess and her sister, the portrait includes three female attendants, or Indian ayahs, whose duties focused on childcare. Each expression is attentive and attuned to the children’s activities as the wife gingerly places her hand on her baby’s chest. The women wearing lightly pigmented, shapeless dresses inhabit a prominent role in society despite their lack of clear individuality compared to Faiz Bakhsh and her sister, adorned with opulent jewels and headscarves. The higher-class women also have names that denote importance, as Bakhsh is explicitly listed in the title. Unsurprisingly, she sits closer to her husband compared to the ayahs. The painting’s color palette is overwhelmingly filled with red, cream-colored, and earthy tones. Zoffany illustrates detailed and illuminated facial expressions compared to the blurred elements in the painting’s background. The bottoms of each attendant’s garments blend seamlessly into the ground as if their feet are not solidly tied to the earth. Zoffany’s choice of placement directly suggests an individual’s importance, their place in society, and the closeness of their relationship with Palmer.
Visual aspects of this work serve as tokens of Palmer’s identity as one that retracts from his image of a strictly militaristic figure. William Palmer served in the British army until 1765 and became an army officer in the East India Company. Less than ten years later, he served as the aide-de-camp, an important facet to a senior military rank, to governor general William Hastings. Palmer adopted a confident ability over time in handling affairs with Indian rulers, while in return, he increasingly admired his governor general. Hastings left India in 1785, leaving Palmer’s career less focused. He began his most significant diplomatic post in 1798 as resident in the city of Poona with the “peshwa,” the appointed Prime Minister of the Maratha empire. Beyond his extensive military background, Palmer was additionally a multifaceted man who valued his family relationships, conveyed in this painting. He chooses to be seen with his family in a setting that spans beyond his political duties. Using a family portrait to communicate otherwise unspoken details of his character illuminates his assimilation into Indian culture.
Palmer’s presumed commissioning of Zoffany to complete this portrait during his stay in Lucknow indicates that he considered his family a priority. Not only does Palmer’s integral presence in this work orient him in relation to domesticity, but these individuals compose his second family rather than his British wife and children. Rather than commissioning a portrait with his first family, Palmer decidedly makes an effort to hire Zoffany for the purpose of representing his favorite second wife. He left his other family behind in London, comprising three sons and two daughters before arriving in India. In this sense, his novel family indicates a sense of pride. He is the only man in this scene, which further allows him to stand out as the patriarch. The only indicator relating him to a military background in this scene is his attire, since his pose strays from a typically alert rendering of an official. It is remarkable for a British military actor to overtly separate himself from his European background for the sake of associating with his new Indian life.
Johann Zoffany, Colonel Blair with his Family and an Indian Ayah, 1786, oil on canvas, Unconfirmed: 965 × 1346 mm frame: 1247 × 1635 × 78 mm, Tate
Colonel Blair with his Family and an Indian Ayah, finished between 1786 to 1787, offers a tonal shift and opposing visualization of Anglo-Indian relationships. Comparing Zoffany’s portrayal of Palmer and his family with another contemporary family portrait emphasizes the range of intimacy amongst these Anglo-Indian familial relationships. The gazes of each figure in the Palmer piece coupled with their eased stances allow it to differ from this Zoffany portrait. Again, William Blair, the only man and focal point, sits in the center of the image, holding his wife Jane’s hand alongside one Indian servant, his young daughter, and his eldest child at the piano. Blair was the colonel of the Bengal army at the time of this painting’s creation. Blair seems utterly disconnected from the Indian ayah and his skin is much lighter, as opposed to Palmer’s skin tone in the other portrait. Interracial marriage and family exudes an enmeshed dynamic between British and Indian individuals that is absent in the Blair scene.
Despite the similar subject matter and contemporaneous quality of these two Zoffany paintings, they relay opposing sides of Britain’s perspective towards India. The Blair portrait exudes a quieter Indian presence by including one servant girl rather than the multiple ayahs accompanying Palmer. This young girl does not seem particularly comfortable in the presence of her master and evidently wears authentic garments without shoes. It was an interesting stylistic choice for Zoffany to place her next to the youngest daughter and between the family’s animals. Based on her positioning, she is not held to the same standard as Palmer’s reverence for the Indian women in their portrait. Her dress provides a harsh contrast when compared to the pastel, ruffled details of the other female ensembles. In the upper, central half of the work resides three paintings of Indian customs that both intrigued and terrified westerners. The details are hard to decipher, but one image shows wood being piled for a Hindu practice, “suttee”, where a widow threw herself onto her husband’s funeral pyre. Another depicts a Hindu folk festival called Charak Puja in the honor of the god Shiva. Men would suspend themselves between the shoulder blades using a wire in hopes that their sacrifice would satisfy Shiva. The significance of these specific Indian customs in the background echo a rigidly portrayed dynamic between British and Indian people, rather than one of acceptance or empathy.
The stylistic choices of this painting pay homage to established artistic themes of eighteenth century portraiture, yet evidently stray from tradition. Contemporary artists like Thomas and William Daniell imparted a diffusive aspect to their landscapes catered to a distinctly British perspective. Although Zoffany’s piece is a portrait, the inclusion of natural flora and fauna in the background convey a similar smokey appearance. Oil on canvas allows these brush strokes to transmit a blurred, hazy area around the centrally placed individuals. Thus, the viewer’s eye is immediately drawn to the more elaborate facial expressions and detailed forms of the nine figures.
The range of skin tones throughout this painting allows certain individuals to stand out. Palmer’s skin seems darker than expected given his Western background, which raises the question of whether lighting or an artistic choice meant to assimilate him into Indian culture. Even his children appear whiter than Palmer, which is especially surprising since their mother is darker-skinned. Zoffany’s depiction of Palmer with a closer complexion to his wife’s causes his appearance to be less noticeably different from his Indian counterparts. When compared to other images depicting Indian and British individuals within the same space, evaluating the variation between complexions usually conveys thought-provoking notions regarding the visualization of race in this period.
While a desired separation between British and Indian natives existed in some part, servants living within such close proximity to their white counterparts allowed for multiracial marriage. Zoffany’s work focuses on Palmer’s identity, which closely relates to Indian domestic life more so than his military obligations. Palmer and Bakhsh’s relationship was not unique in the time of East India Company representatives taking over Indian provinces. The boundaries between enslaved people and servants were contested in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as masters struggled to differentiate between these roles. In her article “Slaves Out of Context” Finn discusses that the prevalence of women and children far outnumber men because the domestic household requires servant labor. Further, concubines and women highly regarded by their British masters could own property and hold higher social standings. Both of these Zoffany portraits depict servants rather than enslaved people, yet Finn’s explanation of the blurriness caused by domestic servitude deepens the relevance of these works.
A point of contention throughout the British and Indian attempt towards coexistence was whether Westerners were aware of their adaptation into Indian society. Zoffany’s two portraits speak for two sides of a debate; one where a multiracial relationship softens the tension of native and colonial encounters, while the other encapsulates a more rigid glimpse into this era. Including paintings of Hindu practice in the background of the Blair portrait seem to align with a British desire to marvel at puzzling aspects of an exotic culture rather than respect their values. Palmer appears to be fully involved with his family despite their differing backgrounds, so he represents a positive consequence of what can occur as a result of interracial marriage. Finn mentions an emerging British sentiment by the late 1780s where masters sought to separate themselves from their servants even though they were surrounded by Indian natives regardless. Blair’s portrait exhibits a less enmeshed approach to Anglo-Indian society, while Zoffany depicts Palmer as tolerant of a multiracial lifestyle and enthusiastic about his family situation.
Analyzing Zoffany’s work as a spectacle of Palmer’s identity reveals insight into British colonial efforts in India. Palmer’s status as a British military actor leading an interracial lifestyle posits an interesting representation of his character. He seems at ease in the midst of his wife, children, and servants based on his mannerisms. The softer, thoughtful expressions in this work impart a sense of comfort. When evaluating Blair’s family portrait, it becomes clear that his identity is less involved with Indian culture and falls under the category of stiff coexistence. The Palmer portrait provides commentary on the British general’s identity and thus explores the connotations of emerging Anglo-Indian societies.
