This painting was a highly significant expression of cultural diplomacy. It formed part of a shipment of gifts sent in 1834 to William IV from Nasir al-Din Haider, King of Awadh (r.1827-37), only one year after the Government of India Act was passed. This Act had created the post of Governor-General of India, who was given legislative powers over ‘British India’, a territory now held in trust for the British king. Acutely aware of plans being made by the East India Company’s government to implement a takeover of his administration, King Nasir al-Din Haider sent the extraordinary group of gifts which, in addition to this painting, also included a magnificent sword, 26 manuscripts from the Lucknow royal library, jewel-encrusted furniture, hookahs, various textiles, items of jewellery, and two pairs of horses and elephants.

Executed in Lucknow by the French artist Alexandre Benoît Jean Dufay (known as Casanova), this huge painting depicts King Nasir al-Din Haider proceeding in state to meet the then British Resident, Colonel John Low. The scene takes place in front of the King’s gleaming white palace on the banks of the River Gomti. The British Residency sits just beyond a drawbridge and peeping through openings in the trees are the golden domes and minarets of the tombs of old Lucknow. At the centre of the canvas, emblazed in a sunburst, is Nasir al-Din Haider sitting atop a heavily draped elephant. He wears a European-style crown and jewelled collar over a crimson velvet and ermine robe, one arm open and outstretched towards the Resident. Low approaches the King on his own lumbering elephant, standing in salutation with his bicorn hat raised above his head, his other hand firmly gripping the front of his howdah. King Nasir al-Din Haider explained to Colonel Low that the work

'may be considered as a symbol of my friendship and regard for the Honorable Company’s Government and as the exhibition of it in England, and the European countries, will be calculated to spread the fame of the union subsisting between the two states, I am desirous that some person should be on the spot to explain all the details of it minutely when His Majesty shall look at it, because merely to see the painting without explanation, would not be sufficient. I also wish to have the picture engraved by the most scientific artist of London, which city may God preserve in peace.'

Although the gifts had been sanctioned by the Governor-General in Calcutta, officials in London deemed them politically unwelcome and decided that they should be declined. William IV’s secretary wrote to Sir John Cam Hobhouse, then President of the East India Company’s Board of Control, that ‘the King would be extremely sorry to hurt the feelings [...] of any person, but he cannot encourage acts of courtesy and friendship which circumstances prevent him from reciprocating, still less deceive [Nasir al-Din Haider] by appearing to hold out expectations of support which may be inconsistent with the views and policy of the Government of India’. The official reason given – that they were too valuable to accept – was considered a humiliation in Lucknow. Nasir al-Din Haider responded that ‘the same kind of presents were sent by my late father to his Late Majesty George the Fourth and were accepted and a gracious letter received in reply along with a beautiful horse’. He went on to lament that if the decision was not reversed ‘much disgrace will be reflected on me [...] I cannot think that His Majesty the King of England could ever have intended that any slight should be thrown on an ally’. Yet the decision stood and the order was given for the gifts’ immediate return.

The presents from Awadh were shipped back to Lucknow where, in October 1838, Colonel Low witnessed their unpacking. ‘Every article’, he noted, ‘was as bright and new as when the packages were made up at this place in November and December 1834.’ Nasir al-Din Haider never saw their return, having died in 1837, supposedly from drinking poisoned sherbet.

Apart from the animals (which were considered unable to bear a second voyage), the oil painting was the only item which did not travel back to India. In accordance with the King of Awadh’s request that it be engraved in England, in September 1838 the work was conveyed to the well-known portrait painter Sir William Beechey, but his death the following January left the project incomplete. By then, William IV had also died, and it was not until 1840 that the new King of Awadh ordered that Casanova, the original artist of the work, be given possession of it. What happened next is unknown, but the painting was sold at auction in May 1841 and bought by a Colonel Palmer who in 1845 sold it to the young Queen Victoria, then in the early stages of her infatuation with India.

Text adapted from Eastern Encounters: Four Centuries of Paintings and Manuscripts from the Indian Subcontinent, London, 2018