presence was more recent and the races could meet on more even terms. Zoffany’s Colonel Mordaunt’s
Cock Match (c.1784–1788) (Figure 3.3) is a good example of this (Jasanoff, 2011, 134). However, many
group portraits, such as The Impey Family (1783) continued to show local Indians in subordinate
positions, serving and entertaining British subjects (Greig, 2011, 158). The Company’s staff and presence
in India also brought indigenous artists more commissions, normally for works in Mughal styles.
Figure 3.3 Johan Zoffany: Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match, oil on canvas, 104 × 150 cm, c.1784–1786.
Tate Gallery, London.
Source: Universal Images Group/Getty Images.In the spirit of the European Enlightenment, and particularly in the aftermath of the East India Company’s
territorial conquest of Bengal during the Seven Years War, many Orientalist scholars and artists traveled
from Europe to India to record local customs, culture, locations and natural phenomena (Crowley, 2011,
169–177). Warren Hastings (1732–1818) was an Orientalist scholar who engaged in local commercial
and political intrigue, and was part of the Asiatic Society of Bengal formed in 1784. The artists William
Hodges, Ozias Humphry (1742–1810), William Daniell (1769–1837) and Thomas Daniell (1749–1840)
traveled to Lucknow and upper India in order to represent artistically the landscapes, monuments and
other sights they saw there, often in western styles such as the picturesque. These and other artists also
sought to record local sights and customs in a documentary manner appropriate to the west’s quest to
understand new cultures and proclaim its serious interest in colonized peoples, and hoped to discover
new commercial opportunities (Craske, 1997, 116–119; Crowley, 2011, 169–203). Many prints and maps
were produced for practical reasons, East India Company officerartists and surveyors producing them
as a means of giving visual expression to colonial “ownership” of new territories. Ethnographic subjects