28 Museum Reviews


Empire). Tey were the parents of the deposed boy-king Maharaja Duleep Singh and grandparents to prominent suffragette (and goddaughter to Queen Victoria), Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. Maharani Jind Kaur was


Te Court of Ranjit Singh at the Fort of Lahore by Bishan Singh, gouache heightened with gold, circa 1860 © Toor Collection


EMPIRE OF THE SIKHS


Over the summer in London there is a major exhibition telling the story of the last great native kingdom which challenged the British for supremacy of the Indian subcontinent. Te Sikh Empire (1799-1849), which spanned much of modern day Pakistan and northwest India, was forged by the ‘Napoleon of the East’ Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780-1839). He became known as Sher-e- Punjab, the Lion of Punjab, over his 40-year reign during which he established a powerful military meritocracy that included many European officers. Te one-eyed king of Lahore was a trusted ally of the British but also a potentially formidable opponent and his empire offered a crucial buffer between them and incursions via the Khyber Pass. Te Sikh kingdom of Punjab was expanded and consolidated by Maharajah Ranjit


Singh during the early years of the 19th century, about the same time as the British- controlled territories were advanced by conquest or annexation to the borders of the Punjab.


Under Maharaja Ranjit


Singh, the Court of Lahore became not only the most magnificent in India but almost certainly the most cosmopolitan in the world at that time. Te far-sighted maharaja created a state that employed talented individuals from as far afield as Europe and America. In preparation for the inevitable clash with the East India Company, he utilised these firangis (foreigners) to develop a powerful army modernised along Western lines. Te inevitable clash with the came in the form of two bitterly fought Anglo-Sikh Wars (1845-46 and 1848–49), in which British pre-eminence hung in the balance as they


JAPAN MODERN Prints in the Age of Photography


Tis exhibition runs concurrently with the major exhibition of Japanese photography, Photography from the Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck Collection, and focuses primarily on the landscape genre to examine the impact of photography on print artists and printmaking technologies. As the introduction of the camera challenged the print market, artists responded by developing new styles. Two distinct print styles emerged- the neo-romantic ‘new print’ movement (shin hanga) and the ‘creative print’ (soshaku hanga) and neo-abstraction movement. Although fundamentally opposite, these new styles employed rural and urban landscape views to convey attitudes toward modernity in Japan. When photography arrived in Japan in the mid-19th


ASIAN ART SEPTEMBER 2018


century, traditional woodblock printmakers were forced to adapt their craft to keep pace with the new medium. In the decades that followed, major upheavals – a new system of government, a devastating earthquake, and the onset of world war – continued to influence Japanese prints. Tis exhibition explores Japanese artists’ reactions to the challenges of modernity from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. It first examines the collapse of the traditional woodblock- printmaking industry in the face of the printing press and photography. Ten, it traces the medium’s resurrection as an art form, through which printmakers recorded scenes of their changing country in striking new ways. • Freer/Sackler, 29 September to 21 January 2019, Washington DC, si.edu


came within hours of a total surrender. But through treachery, victory was turned into defeat for the Sikhs whose territories, treasury and fighting men became incorporated into British dominion. A source of great interest to


Western visitors to the Sikh royal court, prior to annexation, was the Koh-i- noor diamond, which was wrested from Afghan hands in 1813. Te fabled jewel was eventually presented to Queen Victoria on 3 July 1850 in the armlet that Ranjit Singh had specially made for it. Fitted with a rock crystal replica of the original, uncut Koh-i- noor, it is now preserved as part of the Royal Collection in the UK and is one of the highlights on display along with a collection of over 100 objects and works of art from leading private and public collections. On the Sikh Empire being proclaimed a


part of British India in 1849, Governor-General Lord Dalhousie ensured that one of the terms of the Treaty of Lahore required that the Koh-i-noor diamond be surrendered ‘by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England’. Te infamous stone came from a Sikh empire that spanned northern India and shared its borders with Afghanistan and British India. It was in Britain’s name that


the world’s first multi-national corporation, the East India Company, fought against it in what were some of the bloodiest battles ever faced by the British in the subcontinent. Te Koh-i-noor diamond was shipped to England and presented to Queen Victoria in time for the East India Company’s 250th anniversary on 3 July 1850. Among the objects on show


are jewellery and weaponry that were personal items that


Pair of Maharani Jind Kaur’s (1817–1863) gold pendant earrings, Lahore, Punjabe, circa 1830-40 © Toor Collection


regent of the Sikh empire from 1843-1846. After the assassinations of Ranjit Singh’s first three successors, Duleep Singh came to power in September 1843 at the age of five and Jind Kaur became Regent on her son’s behalf. After the Sikhs lost the First Anglo-Sikh War (1845-46) she was replaced in December 1846 by a Council of Regency, under the control of a British Resident. However, her power and influence continued and, to counter this, the British imprisoned and exiled her. Duleep Singh was exiled to


Armlet for the koh-i-noor, gold, enamel, rock crystal, glass, rubies, pearls and silk, circa 1830, replica of the ‘Mountain of Light’ in the original Sikh setting. Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Te Queen Elizabeth II 2018


belonged to Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the most famous of his 30 ‘official’ wives, Maharani Jind Kaur (1817- 1863), the youngest wife of Ranjit Singh, the first Maharaja of the Sikh


Britain at age 15 and was befriended and much admired by Queen Victoria, who was also godmother to several of Duleep Singh’s children. Over 13 years passed before she was again permitted to see her son, after he had been taken to England. In January 1861, Duleep Singh was allowed to meet his mother at Spence’s Hotel


in Calcutta and take her with him back to England, where she remained until her death in Kensington, London, on 1 August 1863 at the age of 46. Duleep Singh died in Paris in 1893 at the age of 55, having seen India after the age of fifteen during only two brief, tightly-controlled visits in 1860 (to bring his mother to England) and in 1863 (to scatter his mother’s ashes). • Brunei Gallery, SOAS, to 23 September, London, soas.ac.uk


Sanjo Bridge by Tokuriki Tomikichiro (1902-2000), Showa era, 1954, woodblock print, ink and colour, nn loan from the Ken and Kiyo Hitch Collection. Image courtesy of Kyoto Tokuriki Hangakan, Inc


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