Portrait of Asaf-ud-Daula

Little more is known of Gobindram Chatera other than that he was a miniaturist active in the north western Indian state of Rajasthan in the first half of the nineteenth century. This piece is a highly accurate copy of a portrait of Asaf-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Awadh (now in present day Uttar Pradesh), thought to be painted by the German painter Johann Zoffany during his stay in India. The fine detail of the flowers and expanding landscape in the background, however, do not appear in Zoffany's work, and it is unknown whether this is an imagined landscape or a depiction of Lucknow, where Asaf-ud-Daula lived. This work is a fascinating example of how miniaturist artists in India at the end of the Mughal period took on Western techniques, as British colonialism continued apace across the subcontinent. (NT)