Foster 979

Terracotta model of ‘Ummeechund’, a trooper of Skinner’s Horse, wearing the distinctive long yellow coat with red trimmings, a black jacket with red frogging and with facings at the collar in white with red trim, a tiger-skin bandolier, a tall shako marked with a crescent and with red trimmings and tassels, and white pantaloons. His left hand rests on the hilt of his upright sword.

Lucknow or Delhi, 1819-20.

Terracotta, with some evidence of wires and an armature, painted in polychrome; 28.5 cm high.

Purchased 1999

Note: The model is very closely based on one of the Company drawings by a Delhi artist done for William and James Baillie Fraser, a portrait of Ummee Chund (Ami Chand). The prime version from the Fraser collection is now in the collection of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan (reproduced Falk and Archer, ‘India Revealed: the Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35’, London, 1989, pl. 18). The inscription by William Fraser on the drawing reads: ‘Ummee Chund the son of Oodey Ram by birth a Jath of vil. Gungana District Gohana province Hissar or Hurreeanah. The man who saved my life when an assassin cut me down by seizing him tho’ unarmed himself. In his troop dress - done in May 1819.’ The attempt on Fraser’s life took place at a large Jat village, Moondlana, on 18 March 1819, and is described in his letter to his brother James written from Panipat 6 April 1819 (reproducd ‘ibid.’, pp. 40-43). Fraser had been cut down and deserted by his attendants, and was expecting a fourth and final blow from his assassin, when ‘Ummeechund, a favourite servant who had been holding the inkstand in the office had just come outside of the inclosing posts & ropes. He saw immediately what was going on; the Assassin standing before him a little to his right, with his left side presented to him. He had not even a stick in his hand, but immediately throwing down the inkstand and running at the fellow grasping him in his arms. They were both strong, but Ummeechund much the tallest. The fellow endeavoured to cut him by striking downwards and backwards, and just as I had turned full towards them & was getting up, they both fell to the ground.’ After further struggles and some ineffective help from other troopers, during which Ummeechund was cut across the hand, the assassin was finally killed. Fraser concludes his letter: ‘You remember Ummeechund, he was with us in the hills & with me at Kalunga, a lad then of 19 or 20, tall & good looking. I now owe my life to him & shall take care to have his life made a comfortable one.’ Kalanga was a fort in the Dun valley where took place General Gillespie’s fatally early assault on the desperately defended fortress in November 1814, during which Fraser, theoretically a non-combatant, was wounded. A further drawing among the Fraser Albums show Ummeechund as he was in 1816 (‘ibid.’, pl. 61).

If as seems probable that there was just the one prime exemplar of this highly personal portrait, then the model must have been made between William Fraser’s commissioning of the painted portrait in May 1819, and James’s packing up the drawings for despatch to Scotland in March 1820. If however James still had the drawing with him when he left Calcutta in May 1820 for Lucknow (which he reached in July) and Delhi (where he stayed from September until November), then his final departure from Bombay in March 1821 marks a ‘terminus ante quem’ for the model’s manufacture.