Colonel Blair with his Family and an Indian Ayah

William Blair was a Colonel in the East India Company who commanded the brigade at Cawnpore. Zoffany paints him with his wife Jane and daughters, the elder also called Jane at the piano, and Maria feeding a cat held by an Indian girl.

In the background are three paintings: a large hill scene, and two of Indian customs which fascinated and horrified westerners. One shows wood being piled for suttee, the burning alive of a widow, and the other a religious ritual of appeasement called Charak Puja in which a man is suspended by a wire between the shoulder blades.