Some of the King's Women, Awadh, Lucknow, circa 1825

Opaque watercolour and gold on paper laid on cloth

Room for Wonder: Indian Painting During the British Period 1760-1880, The American Federation of Arts, New York, 1978

Welch 1978, pp. 100-101, no. 42
Patnaik 1985, no. 19  

Fragment, painted on linen, which is slightly visible on the lower right hand corner of the image. Some paint loss due to creasing along the outer borders. As viewed.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This is a picture of great intensity, vibrancy and painterly skill. Despite its fragmentary nature, it draws the viewer into its busy crowds and energetic atmosphere. Indeed, the fact that one is effectively looking at a detail of a larger work leaves us curious and impressed by the thought of what it must have looked like when complete, and captivated by the detail of the scene itself.

The scene depicts a festival along the banks of the Gumti River, with King Ghazi-al-din Haidar being greeted by throngs of women from the harem. Ghazi arrives on a gilded barge rowed by oarswomen, their faces, as with the rest of the ladies in the harem, individually rendered. The sheer scale of the harem is indicative of the flamboyancy, pomp and ceremony that characterised the court of Awadh during the 19th century (see also lot 113 in this sale). The Italian marble sculpture perched on the river bank symbolises the cosmopolitan taste and European cultural exchanges that were taking place in Lucknow at the time. William Knighton, an Englishman in the service of Nasir al-Din Haidar of Awadh, described some of the pomp and excess of the court, and his description of an outing by the begam's entourage to a mosque to pray for "the greatest of all blessings ... a male child" gives us some flavour of what the King's version that we see here might have entailed.
"Only she could be preceded by kettle-drums (dunka), symbols of sovereignty, along with the embroidered umbrella, the sun symbol (aftadah), and the peacock feather fans. First came the king's bodyguard in blue and silver, band playing and colours unfurled. Then two battalions of infantry with bands and colors, a company of sprearmen with lances, the flag-bearers each with a royal emblazoned crimson banner. Then the Padshah Begum herself in a covered conveyance that "is in fact a small silver room borne on poles" supported by twenty bearers "dressed in white with scarlet turbans and loose scarlet overcoats edged with gold." The bearers are changed every quarter mile. The women bearers come next, then "the gold and silver-sticks-in-waiting chanting the name and titles of the lady within." Behind them on his elephant rides the chief eunuch in turban and cloth of gold with rich cashmere shawls. A host of covered conveyances followed the eunuch, containing the two hundred ladies of the Padshah Begum's court. ... So attended, with such crowds of followers and noisemakers, of both sexes and none, goes the Padshah Begum... thinking no little of her own greatness and of the noise her greatness makes in the world." (Patnaik 1985, pp. 76-77).

A very large panoramic painting of the Procession of Ghazi al-din Haidar through the streets of Lucknow, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is possibly by the same hand (Markel 2011 p.96-97). Ghazi is depicted with the same jewelled crown and ermine-trimmed robe, his courtiers are individually rendered, and the crowds are grouped and intensely coloured in a similar manner to the present work (see detail in Market 2011, pp.24-25). At a monumental 123 by 483cm (48½ by 190in.) it gives us an idea of the potential scale of the present work when complete.