Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match
cleaning has revealed the original colours and made more apparent what appears to be an erection visible on the Nawab of Oudh, the central figure.
Against advice, Zoffany had included people such as Sir Horace Mann, 1st Baronet, British consul at Florence, and the painter Thomas Patch.
One figure who was thought acceptable was George Nassau Clavering-Cowper, 3rd Earl Cowper, who is shown on the left of the painting contemplating the aesthetic virtues of the Niccolini-Cowper Madonna - which Zoffany eventually sold to him.
[2] He had hoped to sail with Captain Cook, but as a second choice he elected to make the long journey to Lucknow.
His fellow painter, Ozias Humphrey, was already painting portraits of the wealthy employees of the British East India Company and of Indian princes.
The nominal head of the State of Oudh was Asaf-Ud-Dowlah, although the governor Warren Hastings was the British representative.
He commanded the power of the British East India Company, and it was Hastings who commissioned the painting of the cockmatch by Zoffany.
[4] In time, Hastings was summoned back to England to face charges of corruption laid by Edmund Burke which took years to dismiss.
Martin's contemporaries shown in both versions of the painting include the Frenchman Antoine Polier.
Both versions include a scene where a young Moslem boy is being publicly embraced by a Hindu man.
His favourite, Hassan Raza Khan, is the figure in the red turban who is at the centre of the scene.
[1] Claude Martin, in a letter to Ozias Humphrey, made an interesting observation on Colonel Mordaunt's role: Colonel Mordaunt is now at the vizier's court, hunting, fighting cocks and doing all he can to please the Nabob in the expectation of being paid the large sums due to him by the Prince... although the Prince has dark and sinister intentions, but I fear much of his success, as the vizier is not much willing to pay his debts particularly to Europeans for what I know of his character I think it such that if one could read in his heart then one would perceive it loaded with many dark and sinister intentions and as you know those that compose his court you then ought to know what man he is.
