Museum number
L2013.1
Object
Framed oil painting: The Auriol and Dashwood Families by Johan Zoffany (1733-1810), oil on canvas c. 1783-7. On loan from a private collection.
Description
Oil painting on canvas in a giltwood frame with applied composition moulding. Landscape format. Conversation piece set in a garden with distant mountain on the right, and (left to right) a banyan, jackfruit and palm tree. Four British gentlemen and two ladies in conversation, with Indian servants. From left to right, an officer in uniform approaches the group; a gentleman in dark suit with arms folded; a seated gentleman in buff coloured coat and dark breeches looking at the officer. Behind him, a hookah-burdar refills his water pipe with tobacco. In the centre, two ladies seated at a tea table, behind them a household bearer refills a silver teapot held on a salver by a page boy. To their right, a gentleman in brown coat seated playing chess with a standing man in green coat, who extends his left hand to receive a letter from a hircarrah (courier) in aubergine tunic and yellow turban. Between the two, in long white muslin jama, a bannian or household steward holding long sheaf of papers.
Materials
oil paint
canvas
giltwood
On display?
Yes

Further description

Simple name
painting
Subject
portrait
buildings and gardens
everyday life
Dimensions
framed: 10cm (d) x 157cm (h) x 214cm (w)
image size: 142cm (h) x 198cm (w)
The Auriol and Dashwood Families Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) Oil on canvas, about 1783–7 Zoffany’s informal conversation piece offers a glimpse into the colonial life of 1780s Bengal. This tea party under a jackfruit tree is probably set in the garden of James Peter Auriol, an administrator in the East India Company (in green, on the right). His two sisters are seated between their new husbands, with two more brothers on the left. The painting asserts the connection between three influential families (Auriol, Dashwood and Prinsep) while highlighting their wealth and refinement. It also shows the hierarchies and power relationships between the affluent British and their Indian servants at the time of the empire. L2013.1 On loan from the Dashwood Family

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