MURSHIDABAD, CIRCA 1785

The suite of seat furniture is rightly among the most celebrated artefacts arising from Britain’s relationship with India in the 18th century. Not only is it a tour-de-force of design and craftsmanship reflecting different elements of European and Chinese furniture reinterpreted through the use of exotic material and the skill of Indian carvers, but it also has a fascinating and unbroken provenance, albeit one that has been misrepresented repeatedly through the passage of time.

The furniture was originally gifted by Mani Begum to Warren Hastings and his wife Marian. The history of the suite was described in detail by Amin Jaffer.¹ Hastings was born into quite modest circumstances, though his family had been lords of the manor of Daylesford, Oxfordshire, until relinquished in 1715. He first travelled to India as a clerk in the East India Company in 1750, and soon impressed his employer securing successive promotions. However he had misgivings about aspects of the administration and resigned in 1764, only to seek re-employment in 1769 through the sponsorship of Robert Clive. He served as Governor of Calcutta from 1771 and, after the Presidencies of Madras and Bombay were brought under Bengal’s control in 1773, he was raised to the new post of Governor-General of Bengal, a position he held until 1785. Hastings’ talent was as an administrator and reformer and alongside Clive, is considered to have laid the foundations of the British Empire in India. He was set on reforming the complicated and corrupt administration that had developed under the auspices of the East India Company, among the improvements he implemented were the currency, tax and legal systems, he created an efficient postal system, backed a proper cartographic survey of India, and built a series of public granaries to ensure there was no repeat of the great famine of 1770-71. It is generally agreed that Hastings left the administration of the Company in Bengal in a far better state than he had found it. As William Dalrymple wrote `Underlying all Hastings’ work was a deep respect for the land he had lived in since his teens… Hastings genuinely liked India, and by the time he became Governor spoke not only good Bengali and Urdu but also fluent court and literary Persian.² On returning to England in 1785 he became embroiled in a trial accused of crimes and misdemeanours in India, instigated by a former agent with whom he had fallen out, but after a process that was to last seven years, Hastings was acquitted with his reputation intact.

Mani Begum was well disposed to Hastings. She was the widow of Mir Jafar who played a prominent role in the British success at the Battle of Plassey, 1757. In return the British raised Mir Jafar to the throne as Nawab of Murshidabad (Bengal), a position he held in two reigns between 1757- 60 and from 1763 until his death in 1765. He was on good terms with both Robert Clive and Warren Hastings but his reigns were mired in corruption and in return for bribes he was propped up as a puppet ruler by the East India Company. Hastings, whose intentions for India were of a non-oppressive nature and thus out of step with the majority of his peers and his employers, was sympathetic and indeed vocal in his support of Mir Jafar. He complained that the Nawab was being exposed to intolerable pressure and affronts in his attempts to curb the illegal trading activities of Company employees. Siding with the Nawab and effectively against his employers Hastings' good relationship with Mir Jafar was sealed and in so doing he made enemies on his own side. Hastings resigned his post in 1764 and Mir Jafar died the following year. Mani Begum, as the Nawab’s favoured consort, found herself in control of his fortune and in a favourable and influential position. Hastings returned to India in 1769 and within two years was elevated to the post of Governor of Bengal, and later Governor-General, continuing to work in support of the Indians and against oppressive and tyrannical practices.

Among his acts was to appoint Mani Begum as guardian to the young Nawab Mubarak-ud-daula, son of Mir Jafar, who in 1770 succeeded his half-brother as Nawab at the age of just twelve, despite the fact she was not his natural mother. This served to increase her influence, for which she was clearly deeply indebted to Hastings.

As described by Amin Jaffer³ the ivory furniture sent by Mani Begum to Hastings were intended as tokens of gratitude, and these gifts were received both while Hastings was still in India, and after his return to England in 1785. Hastings’ wife Marian brought some Murshidabad furniture with her when she travelled from India in 1784, including tables, chairs and beds of solid ivory.⁴ And in the same year Hastings wrote to his wife from Bengal informing her of Mani Begum’s latest gift - `she had prepared an elegant display of your couches and chairs for my entertainment… There are two couches, eight chairs, and two footstools, which are all of the former patterns, except two of the chairs, which are of buffalo horn, most delicately formed and more to my taste than the others, not designed for fat folks or romps’.<sup>5</sup> Further shipments of ivory furniture were handled by Hastings’ agent George Nesbitt-Thompson in 1786, ‘Beegum has sent four chairs and a very beautiful table all of ivory’,<sup>6</sup> at which time Hastings wrote (to Nesbitt-Thompson) to inform him of the `very great value’ of the ivory chairs, and to instruct that the chairs should not be upholstered with velvet or any other material which would have caused their seizure by Customs House officers.⁷ The latter shipment was lost at sea on the Hinchinbrook, but in 1787 the Begum then sent four further chairs, a table and two footstools, all of ivory, on the Atlas.⁸

All told, correspondence between 1784 and 1787 indicates the Hastings took delivery of ivory furniture including two couches, two tables, four footstools and fourteen chairs. Some items were received prior to 1784 since Hastings referred to the `former patterns’, and more may have been received after 1787. At least some of this was installed at Daylesford which Hastings purchased in 1778, it is mentioned in inventories of 1799 and 1834, in the former there is listed various ivory pieces though probably not the pieces offered here, in the latter there is additionally a suite of solid ivory furniture consisting of two sofas, eight armchairs (the 9th broken and in the stables), and two firescreens, plus the large oval table and footstools in the ‘Best Drawing Room’.⁹

THE DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE

Murshidabad became noted as a centre for the production of carved ivory objects in the early 18th century when it was still the seat of the nawab (Murshid Quli Khan) and a centre of courtly patronage. It’s unclear whether the trade developed as a result of the migration of skilled workers of the Baskar caste from Sylhet, or if it was introduced by a Delhi ivory carver whose work was copied by Baskars. One of the latter was appointed carver to the nawab, and through his apprentices and their descendants the craft was established. The fruits of their labour, mainly small-scale objects, were used domestically, but furniture was largely made on a commission-basis for the homes of, and as presentation objects for East India Company officials.¹⁰ Traditional Indian interiors had no need of furniture, as dictated by local custom while at court western-style furniture was kept for visiting officials, a fact that in itself created division.

After 1790 ivory furniture from Murshidabad tended to follow western models more closely, but prior to that the work was more elaborate and borrows elements from English, European (especially French and Dutch), and Chinese furniture, as displayed by the Hastings suite. It is part of a group of similarly styled seat furniture with oval seats and five legs that seem to derive from Dutch burgomaster chairs or French fauteuils de bureau, while the splats in the backs and sides (in this case intertwining palm fronds, in others the splats are of pierced oval shape) might conceivably be influenced by contemporary English patterns. The curved backs recall Chinese horseshoe-back chairs while the tigers’ heads were thought to be symbolic of Tipu Sultan of Mysore, known as the `Tiger of Mysore’ – a feature which contributed in no small part to the misattribution of the furniture. The carving was heightened with gilding, apparently applied directly to the ivory, a characteristic that seems to be peculiar to Mushidabad and the gilt meandering vines and ho-ho birds depicted on the arms and set rails particularly possibly derive from the decorated borders of Mughal manuscripts of the 16th and 17th centuries. While the gilding is now worn thorough use, it must have rendered the furniture especially opulent in the candlelit 18th century .

THE LATER HISTORY OF THE SUITE

Warren Hastings survived his impeachment and lived on in semi-retirement at Daylesford until his death in 1818, during which time he remained critical of the British administration in India and continued to promote the welfare and talents of their Indian subjects. After 1818 his stepson and heir Gen. Sir Charles Imhoff (d.1853) took up residence at Daylesford and in 1853 the ivory furniture was sold, with the exception of two tables given to Lady Imhoff for life (as per the 1834 inventory) by Fairbrother, Clark & Lye, 20 – 27 August 1853. The two sofas, lots 396 and 397, were each described as `A sofa of solid ivory, in the richest style of Oriental magnificence, superbly carved and richly gilt, the elbows finished with tiger heads, stuffed seats and two bolsters…… 6ft.6 long’ and 'The Companion couch’. The nine chairs were sold as six lots, three pairs (lots 398 - 400), `A Pair of Elbow Chairs, in solid ivory, of corresponding style, and of equal magnificence with the sofas’, the three single chairs were lots 401 – 403 (the last described as damaged which corresponds to the 1799 inventory).

Various parts of the suite, including oval tables that were described in 1799 (a pair in each of Warren Hastings’ library at Daylesford, and Mrs Hastings’ own study) subsequently passed from collection to collection, or reappeared, invariably with inaccurate or misleading provenance. An inventory of Lowther Castle in 1877 lists ‘An Ivory Couch (from Tipoo Saib’s Palace) with loose seat’, together with '4 chairs en suite’ and four footstools, and was listed again in a 1944 valuation at Lowther though with just three footstools. In 1947, in the sale of contents of Lowther Castle conducted by Maple & Co. Ltd and Thomas Wyatt, 15 April, the suite was sold by the 6th Earl of Lonsdale as lot 308 to Thornton for £1,500. In 1967 it was with the London dealers Mallett & Sons. It (a sofa and four armchairs) was then acquired for a British private collection where it remained until sold at Sotheby’s, London, 4 December 2013, lots 545 – 547 for a total of £1,159,500 including premium. The three footstools appeared with Lowther provenance in 1981.

Further parts of the suite appear to have been in the possession of the 1st Baron Londesborough, loaned to the Bethnal Green Museum in 1878 and catalogued as a `Drawing-room Suite, comprising a sofa, a card table, two small tables and four arm-chairs, ivory, carved and gilt. Presented to Warren Hastings by Tipu Sahib.¹¹ It was sold at auction in 1888 and in 1892 it was recorded that the Maharah of Dharbanga had acquired part of the renowned Daylesford ivory furniture. A chair from the Maharajah is currently on loan with the Victoria Memorial Hall, Calcutta, not of exactly the pattern offered here but with the oval splat. If this is correct then it suggests that the ivory furniture at Daylesford might have comprised chairs with both the foliate splat and the oval splat.

It is known that Hastings and his wife gave ivory furniture to Queen Charlotte, including `a state bed… a present from Lady Hastings, brought from India…’<sup>12</sup> and chairs, some of which were installed in the `India Room’ at Frogmore House as recorded by Pyne in 1819’. More than forty items of ivory and ivory-veneered furniture were included in the sale of her estate in 1819 at Christie’s (24 – 27 May 1819) including three pairs (lots 90 – 92), ivory and gilt, `the panels filled with carvings of palm branches’ corresponding with the chairs offered here. All three lots sold to Swaby. One of these pairs was sold at the Stowe auction of 1848, lot 293, the souvenir catalogue description again incorrectly stating Tipoo Sahib as the source, but noted that they had been sent by Hastings to Queen Charlotte `and they are now the property of Baron Lionel Rothschild’.¹³ These were later acquired from Edmund de Rothschild in 1947 by Frank Partridge & Sons and were exhibited (alongside another pair with the oval backs) in an Exhibition of Art chiefly from the Dominions of India & Pakistan, Royal Academy of Arts, 1947 – 48.

A pair of chairs of the same pattern, with palm-carved splats is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (accession no. 1075-1882). They were bequeathed by the collector John Jones of 95 Piccadilly in 1882 though it remains unclear quite how he came to own them. As a collector Jones’s tastes were for French furniture and for objects associated with historic figures, if he understood the armchairs to have been associated with Tipu Sultan they would certainly have satisfied the latter criteria. Meanwhile two of the oval tables listed in correspondence and possibly those loaned by the Baron Londesborough are known. One is also in the Victoria and Albert Museum (accession no.1085-1882) given by John Jones, while another was offered for sale from the collection of Mr. S. Jon Gerstenfeld, Christie’s, London, 8 June 2006, lot 260. Two of the smaller tables were described as being given to Lady Imhoff and the whereabouts of the large table is unknown.

Other related furniture has been recorded elsewhere. Another four chairs with oval splats and an oval table are in the Soane Museum, London, apparently acquired by Sir John Soane in the early 1820s while another two armchairs were sold at Christie’s, London, one (previously sold by H.R the Duke of Saxe- Coburg in 1932) 9 July 1998, lot 20, the second (previously at Hever Castle and sold by the 2nd Baron Astor of Hever) 11 November 1999, lot 230.

1. Amin Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, pp. 240 – 246.
2. W. Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire, 2019, pp. 238 – 239.
3. ibid, p. 242.
4. K. L. Murray, Beloved Marian: The Social History of Mr. and Mrs Warren Hastings, London, 1938, pp. 147, 160.
5. C. Lawson, The Private Life of Warren Hastings, First Governor-General of India, London, 1895, p. 149.
6. Nesbitt-Thompson papers, IV, p.225.
7. Nesbitt-Thompson papers, V, pp. 81 – 82.
8. Nesbitt-Thompson papers, VI, pp. 187.
9. Rev. F. E. Witts, The Diary of a Cotswold Parson, Dursley, 1978, p.74.
10. Jaffer. p. 238.
11. George Wallis, Catalogue of a special loan collection of furniture, 1878, p. 44, no. 82.
12. Lady’s Magazine, 16 September 1784, p. 556.
13. Henry Rumsey Forster, The Stowe Catalogue Priced and Annotated, 1848, p. 19.