Foster 13

Colonel Colin MacKenzie (1754-1821), 1816

MacKenzie, wearing scarlet uniform, bareheaded and leaning on a cane, is accompanied by three of his Indian assistants.

The landscape in the background is of the Jain statue of Gomatesvara at Karkala. The same landscape appears in WD 623, 592 and 783, and is attributed to the surveyor/artist, Benjamin Swain Ward. Mackenzie probably selected this background personally, and would have given Hickey a copy of the landscape to work into the composition. See Howes (2010: p.154-155) for a discussion of this background's significance.

Identification of the three individuals surrounding Mackenzie is inconclusive. An inscription on the back of the frame reads, ‘Portraits of Colonel MacKenzie (Surveyor-General of India), and of three distinguished Brahmins of the three leading sects in the South of India. The native holding the telescope is Kavelli Venkata Lakshmerjah, President of the Literary Society of Hindus in connection with the Royal Asiatic Society of London. In the background is represented the celebrated colossal figure of Budhha.' ’ This inscription was clearly added after the painting arrived in London, as it contains incorrect information that Mackenzie would have never sanctioned. In particular, it misidentifies the sculpture on the hilltop as a Buddha. This casts doubt on the inscription’s identification of the Indian assistants. Because the identification of the background is incorrect, the authority of the inscription on the back of the frame is extremely questionable.

In 1948 R.H. Phillimore (1950) identified the men standing with Mackenzie, but this identification also mistakes the site as Sravana Belogola, suggesting that Phillimore's source is the inscription on the back of othe frame.

23 by 15 ins (58.5 by 38 cms)

Presented by Henry Traill, June 1822

Literature: W. Foster (1931) pl.vi; R.H. Phillimore, ‘Historical records of the Survey of India, 1800 to 1815’ (Dehra Dun, 1950), II, pl.22; Archer (1979), 204-33, pl.157; J. Howes 'Illustrating India' (2010), 154-5, 237-8, pl.1.

Engraved: No name or date (see P701)

Exhibited: Royal Academy, ‘The Art of India and Pakistan’ 1947-48 (899); ‘India and Britain’, Commonwealth Institute, 1982 (130); National Portrait Gallery, ‘The Raj’, 1990, no.272.

Colin MacKenzie entered the Madras Engineers in 1782. After taking part in the war against Tipu Sultan 1790-92, he surveyed the ceded territory as well as the Deccan until 1798. This work was interrupted by the Siege of Pondicherry in 1793 and the capture of Ceylon in 1796 when he was the commanding engineer. After the 1799 campaign against Tipu Sultan, he carried out the Mysore Survey until 1810 when he became Surveyor-General of Madras. From 1811 to 1813 MacKenzie commanded the engineers in Java and from 1813 to 1815 was on special duty in Calcutta writing up his Java material. In 1815, after a year’s leave spent in northern India, he returned to Madras but went back to Calcutta in 1816 as the first Surveyor-General of India. He stayed there until his death in May 1821. He began the first topographical surveys based on triangulation, all previous maps of Indian districts having been based on simple military route surveys. MacKenzie was a great antiquarian and most of his collections of manuscripts and drawings are in the Library.

Henry Traill was the first Treasurer of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. He resigned on 3 October 1799 because members were defaulting in payment.

Thomas Hickey’s iconic portrait of Colin Mackenzie (1757-1821) flanked by his Indian assistants is perhaps the one image in the India Office Collections which most clearly evokes one man’s career. It was probably painted in Madras some time between 1816 and May 1818, shortly before Colin Mackenzie departed for Calcutta to take up his post as Surveyor General of India. Hickey was based in Madras between 1812 and 1824 so this is certainly where the painting was created. The painting did not come straight to East India House from India, but rather, passed through the hands of Henry Traill, who gave it to East India House in 1822. Although one cannot say for certain how Traill came upon the painting, he was professionally connected with Paxtons, Cockerell, Traill & Co., East India Agents of Hanover Square, London.

Mackenzie stands at the centre of the picture wearing his Company uniform surrounded by three Indian men who presumably were his assistants. The background shows a distinctive landscape featuring a colossal stone sculpture of a man at the top of a hill. We know from two water colours in the Mackenzie Collection that this backdrop is of the Jain hilltop shrine at Karkala, in Karnataka State, India (see attached photocopies). The stone sculpture at the top of the hill is of the Jain saint, Gomateshvara. The water colours are based on sketches collected by Benjamin Swain Ward (Francis Swain Ward’s son!!!) in May 1806. The fair copy water colours were prepared in around 1816, probably to provide Thomas Hickey with an image to paint into the portrait’s backdrop.

Copies and studies held elsewhere:

1) There is a water colour study of the painting in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society (see attached photocopy). It measures 30 by 45 cm and its circumstances of acquisition are unrecorded. It is illegibly signed and the date is difficult to read, but could possibly be ‘Apr 6 1843’.

2) There is a water colour detail of Mackenzie’s head and shoulders based on the Hickey portrait hanging in St. Stephen’s Church, Delhi.

3) In the Langham Hotel, at the south end of Portland Place in London, there is a replica oil painting of Hickey’s portrait on the ground floor, next to the entrance to the Chukka Bar. It isn’t a very good copy and the canvas is a larger format than the BL original.