Kanpur- The Last Resting Place of Robert Home

Cawnpore- The Last Resting Place of Robert Home

By prof..M.A. Naqvi

Robert Home is well known as a painter of historical scenes, through world famous works such as icon of Mysore Wars “Lord Cornwallis receiving the Sons of Tipu Sultan as Hostages”. But Kanpur happens to be his last resting place remains unknown by and large. An important recorder of British India in the late 18th and early 19th century, he can easily be described as Thomas Hope of India for his breathtaking  portraits, history paintings, landscapes and scenes of native life. Some of his paintings are on display at Victoria Memorial, Kolkata while his portraits of the Governor-General of India, Marquis Wellesley and his brother Major-General, Sir Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington) can be seen at Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi.

One of the few British artists to have spent almost the whole of a long career in India, Home painted portraits of both British and Indian political dignitaries. A professional artist, Home came from a medical family. His father was ‘an eminent surgeon’ and brother was the first president of the Royal College of Surgeons. His sister married the great anatomist James Hunter. Preferring the brush to the scalpel, Robert Home studied painting under Angelica Kauffman. He began to exhibit at the Royal Academy by 1780 and worked in both Italy and Ireland before sailing to India in 1790.

He joined as official war artist to Lord Cornwallis in the Third Mysore War. Home accompanied the campaign, making sketches of the forts and engagements. Home's painting (March 1791) 'The Death of Colonel Moorhouse at Bangalore, happens to be one of the most memorable records of the campaign. His another historical (1792-95) depicts Tipu’s sons Abdul Khaliq and Maizuddin, the hostage princes with Ghulam Ali Khan, the Vakil of Tipu who is shown seated in a carrying chair and in the background an Englishman, most probably, Captain Kennaway the personal secretary to Lord Cornwallis is shown as having a discussion with Ali Raza Khan, another counsel of Tipu, holding a treaty document.

Influenced by Thomas and William Daniell, who visited Madras in 1792, Home produced a number of landscapes which show exquisite attention to architecture and Indian life. His evocative and coolly atmospheric portraits afford us a rare glimpse of daily life for the British in India, at a time when Britain’s position in the subcontinent was undergoing a dramatic change.

 In 1795 Home moved to Calcutta. By June 1795 Home has established a successful studio in Calcutta. In October it was reported that he ‘was much employed, and has handsome prices, I hear’. This is confirmed by his sitters’ book, which is preserved in the National Portrait Gallery, London. His standard charge was 500 sicca rupees (£60) for a head, and 2,000 rupees (£240) for a full-length portrait. In addition to his commissions from wealthy East India Company civilians, Home painted several portraits of Marquis Wellesley, of Lord Minto (who succeeded him as Governor-General), and of the Marquis’s brother Arthur, later Duke of Wellington; he also portrayed a number of military commanders and high court judges. Among his patrons was the diarist William Hickey, who observed that in 1804 Home was ‘then deemed to be the best artist in Asia’. He was also an able draughtsman: his ''Select Views in Mysore, the Country of Tipu

Sultan'' were published in London and Madras in 1794, and in Calcutta he made 215 water colors of Indian mammals, birds and reptiles, some of which were also worked up as oils.
He made a happy second marriage and his children joined him in India, all four sons becoming members of the East India Company’s army. Home, a punctual, amiable and hardworking man, became the chief portrait painter in Calcutta. He made a short visit to Dacca in 1799 to paint the Nawab Nasrat Jang. When Thomas Hickey and eccentric George Chinnery arrived in Calcutta in 1807 and 1811 respectively, Home’s successful portrait practice was threatened. In 1814, Home became Court Painter to the Nawab of Oudh at Lucknow. He worked for the Anglophile Nawab Ghazi-ud-din Haidar for thirteen years, painting portraits and court life. Home also designed Ghazi’s crown when he was declared as King of Oudh in 1819, as well as carriages, boats, furniture, even an elephant god. His interesting work for the ruler includes a lengthy barge in the form of a grinning crocodile. On its scaly back sat a howdah-like pavilion so the monarch of Oudh and one or more of his wives could relax in the shade as rowers propelled them along the  waters of the Gomti. This image was included in the exhibition of Lucknow portraiture at the Musee Guimet in Paris in 2011.
The artist also prepared the regalia for the coronation of Ghazi al-Din Haidar (1814-27). His creations include a gem-studded golden throne based on Mughal precedents. He received an annual salary of £2,000 and also designed crowns, robes, commemorative medals, and a coat-of-arms that were European in inspiration. Similar coronation garb was worn by the King Nasir al-Din Haidar (1827-37). The visual emblems of the coronation were liberally employed by later rulers until the last king of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah (1847-56). In addition, he painted some southern landscapes, including the two views of Mahabalipuram in the collection of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta.

A description of his last-cited painting, published in 1907, states  "The King is dressed in a canary-yellow chapkan; and strings of pearls and other precious stones encircle his neck and bluish-yellow turban." When he wasn't busy painting the ruler, his wives, and their children, Home put likenesses of British officials to canvas. He painted Marquess of Wellesley more than a dozen portraits

 After Ghazi-ud-din’s death in 1827, Home settled at Cawnpore where his widowed daughter Mrs. Anne Walker took care of him. Emma Roberts has recorded “Home kept up a handsome establishment ….. and had been known to exercise  the most extensive  hospitality to the residents of the station. He breathed his last in 1834 at the age of 82 and lies buried close to his daughter’s grave, near the main entrance of ‘Kuthchery Cemetery’ in Civil Lines.