FOR ALL WITH AN INTEREST IN THE HISTORY
OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY AND THE BRITISH RAJ
LIVE LECTURES
The British in India's next live event will be an evening lecture on Wednesday 28 October at the East India Club, St James's Square.
WEDNESDAY 28 OCTOBER 2026 5pm -9pm (LIVE)
Zoffany in India
Charles Greig
East India Club, St James's Square, London SW1Y 4LH
Johan Zoffany spent five years in India during the 1780s, producing some of the greatest paintings of India ever conceived. A former court painter to King George, Zoffany rapidly established himself in Calcutta, patronised by the European elite. He subsequently travelled to Lucknow, where he found a rich source of commissions at the nawab’s court and amongst the cosmopolitan European community that surrounded it. He spent extensive periods there, producing works that reflect Lucknow’s distinctive fusion of European and Indian elite culture, notably Colonel Mordaunt’s Cock Match, arguably the masterpiece of Anglo-Indian painting.
This talk will look at Zoffany’s years in India and discuss both his greatest paintings and some previously unknown works identified by the speaker.
Charles Greig is a consultant and scholar specialising in Anglo-Indian and Company art. In the early 1990s he was appointed art historical advisor to the Calcutta Tercentenary Trust and surveyed the vast collection of the Victoria Memorial Hall. In 2010 and 2011 he undertook two journeys in India, retracing Zoffany’s footsteps, which he recorded in an essay in Johan Zoffany RA: Society Observed, the catalogue accompanying the major Zoffany retrospective at Yale and the Royal Academy. He wrote most of the catalogue’s Indian entries and has contributed to numerous publications on European painters in India.
On 26 October the Tate announced that Charles Greig had gifted them 'an outstanding collection of fifty artworks by artists who lived and worked in India during the 18th and 19th centuries' with the intention that they remain publicly accessible. The collection of oil paintings, watercolours and miniatures includes works by important Indian artists such as Sita Ram and Ghulam Ali Khan and by leading European artists such as Johan Zoffany, William Hodges, Thomas and William Daniell, and Rudolf Swoboda.
How to book
Image: Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal, with his wife Marian in the grounds of their country home at Alipore, c. 1784. Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta, public domain.
The lecture will be preceded by drinks from 5pm in the East India Room, where drinks may be purchased from the pay bar. The lecture will take place in the Clive Room at 6pm. For those who would like to stay, an optional two-course meal (main course, dessert and coffee) will follow at 7.30pm in the East India Room. Dietary requirements accommodated where notified. Dress code: jacket and tie (men); dress or smart separates (women). All welcome.
TICKETS: Lecture: £22.50 | Lecture and meal: £68.50
Cancellations will be accepted up to 14 October, after which no refund will be available on lecture tickets or the lecture component of lecture and meal tickets unless taken by someone on the waiting list. (The meal component on lecture and meal tickets is refundable until 22 October.)* Email info@britishinindia.org.uk to arrange a refund.
* Platform and payment processing fees for tickets purchased by card payment are non-refundable.
* Price includes platform and payment processing fees (£1)
Join the waitlist for tickets that become available through cancellations
* Price includes platform and payment processing fees (£1.75)
Governor-General Lord Moira and his party enjoy a fireworks display in the grounds of the palace of Farhat Baksh in Lucknow (detail). Watercolour from Views by Seeta Ram from Cawnpore to Mohumdy vol. IV produced for Lord Moira, afterwards the Marquess of Hastings, by Sita Ram between 1814 and 1815. British Library, public domain. Farhat Baksh, originally named the Château de Lyon, was designed and built in 1781 on the banks of the Gomti river by Frenchman Claude Martin as his city residence in Lucknow. After Martin’s death it was acquired by Saadat Ali Khan, Nawab of Avadh, who renamed it Farhat Baksh and transformed it into a palace.