Foster 29

Shah ‘Alam (Mughal Emperor 1759-1806) conveying the Grant of the Diwani to Lord Clive, August 1765.. A copy by West of his original painted 1774-95 commissioned by the first Lord Clive; the copy commissioned by his son the Earl of Powis c.1818, and presented to the East India Compnay in 1820.

The Emperor, with robe and turban of gold brocade, is seated on his throne under a canopy. He is handing the grant to Lord Clive, who stands on his right, and behind whom is General Carnac, his second in command. Both officers are in full uniform, and Clive wears the ribbon of the Bath. Near them stand a group of British officers: Captain Archibald Swinton, Major Pearson, Sir Henry Strachey, Anselm Beaumont and Thomas Kelsall. The British flag and the Company’s colours are seen behind. On the other side of the picture are depicted the ministers and officers of the imperial household. Behind these are the banner of the Mughal Emperor and two elephants.

114 by 159 ins (290 by 400 cms)

Presented by the first Earl of Powis, 1820

Literature: M. Archer (1979), 417-8, pl.332.

For a key to the picture and a description, see IOL Tracts, vol.423. For the Treaty of Allahabad, by which the Mughal Emperor granted the diwani or power of collecting revenue and administering civil justice to the East India Company, see Mss Eur G49.

The following extract from the Court Minutes (25 October 1820) records the presentation of this picture to the East India Company by the Earl of Powis. ‘The Chairman then acquainting the Court that the Earl of Powis had been further pleased to authorise him to intimate a wish on the part of his Lordship to present to the Court a Copy by Mr. West of his original Painting representing his father, the late Lord Clive, receiving the grant of the Dewanny from the Mogul: Resolved that the Chairman he requested to convey to Lord Powis the Court’s acknowledgements for his obliging offer, and to assure his Lordship that the Court will have great satisfaction in accepting a Picture which represents one of the most important events in the administration of his distinguished Ancestor, and in the history of the East India Company.’

At the India House this picture hung in the Finance and Home Committee Room. The original painting, ‘Lord Clive receiving from the Mogol the grant of the Duanney’ was planned for Clive's house at Claremont in 1774. When Claremont was being built by Clive, Capability Brown was commissioned to design the decoration of the Eating Room and Benjamin West to provide a series of paintings featuring the chief events of Clive's career which could be interspersed with ‘enrichments’ and roundels. Work was interrupted by Clive’s suicide that year. West carried to completion only this painting of the entire scheme, but was not finished or exhibited at the Royal Academy until 1795. It was a fantasy for the actual event took place in Clive’s tent and his friends Kelsall and Beaumont were not present. In 1799 Edward Clive was still trying to find a home for it. In a letter to Sir Henry Strachey from Madras of 11 August 1799, he writes: ‘He [Lord Mornington] is building a magnificent Government House at Calcutta. I have promised West’s Picture of the Duanny, or a copy of it as one of its decorations and I request Lord Powis [Clive’s brother-in-law] and you to decide which it shall be. I have no room belonging to me proper to place it in, but if Lord Powis has any situation which he thinks will suit it at Powis Castle, and it is agreable to his Lordship that it should take up its abode in the Principality, you may give West the commission to paint a copy of it upon the terms he mentioned to you £500 without delay. If it cannot be placed to Ld P’s satisfaction at the Castle, I would then wish the original to be sent out to India without troubling West to copy it.’ The scheme for copying the original then seems to have come to nought, but there was still no room for it in Powis, and the original ended up in the house of Lord Clive’s second son Robert at Oakly Park, where it remains. For reasons unknown, Lord Clive, by then Earl of Powis, commissioned another copy from West of this painting about 1818, when it was seen by Farington in West’s studio, which he presented to the East India Company in 1820.

This work is on long term loan to the National Trust in Powis Castle.