Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match

Johann Zoffany (1733 - 1810)

Tate Collection

1784 - 1786

One of the most striking conversation pieces of the eighteenth century, and quite unlike any produced in England. It reveals a great deal to us about the Anglo-Indian relationship in the heyday of the East India Company. The picture represents the Nawab of Oudh and a group of European adventurers who were freeloading at his court at Lucknow. Many of the Europeans at that time led half-Indian and half-European lives and most had Indian wives. Equally, Indians themselves were attracted by European life and arts. At this brilliant and dissipated court Europeans and Indians mingled on far more equal terms than in Calcutta.

• Medium: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 106 x 150 cm
• Art Fund Grant: £50000 ( Total: £434,292; Tax Remission; Export stopped)
• ArtFunded in: 1994
• Vendor: Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox

Provenance

Commissioned by Warren Hastings, sold Fairbrother, 26/9/1853; Colonel Dawkins; Christie's 9/3/1898; Agnew; Marquis of Tweedale, sold Sotheby's 30/6/26; Sir George Sunderland, by descent, offered Christie's, 10/4/92; bought in (with Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox).

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