A s you walk through the exhibition, Princes & People of India: Portraits by Emily Eden at DAG, New Delhi, it feels as if the sights and sounds of 19th-century India are coming to life around you. The vistas of Shimla, Mussoorie and Lahore are faithfully captured in the hand-coloured lithographs and sketches on display. But more than the landscapes, it is the artist’s visual study of different communities and individuals that stands out. These depictions are not just significant for their aesthetic quality but for the stories they tell of the sociopolitical shifts taking place across the Indian subcontinent with the expanding colonial influence.
Emily Eden occupies a unique position in history for creating a rare female-authored visual record of the region at the time based on her travels across northern India from 1836-42. The sketches and lithographs are accompanied by her own texts and commentary, thus becoming a vivid chronicle of an important moment in history. The gaze remains very much that of an outsider’s, however the works that emerge are more like studies, stemming from curiosity about people and cultures, than mere depictions of the exotic Orient.
In a way the exhibition, curated by art historian Mary Ann Prior and on till 14 August, also paints a portrait of Eden. She accompanied her sister and older brother, George—or Lord Auckland as he was later known—to India as he held several administrative posts, including the governorgeneral of India from 1836-42. Together they travelled across the northern expanse of the subcontinent from Kolkata to Lahore, visiting several princely states, including the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1838.
A record of life
While her position offered her access to numerous courts, including that of Raja Heer Singh and Sher Singh, Eden’s images are most impactful when depicting the common citizenry—fakirs with matted locks, hunting attendants, women from local communities, soldiers. On her return to England, over two dozen of these sketches were engraved as lithographs and published as Portraits of the Princes and People of India in 1844. According to Prior, Eden’s main contribution was recording, in sumptuous detail, the elites and ordinary people of India, with an emphasis on clothing and accessories. “She left us a record of life at that time which was particularly unusual for a woman,” she adds.
Each portrait first draws you in with the detailing of the apparel, jewellery and accessories—take, for instance, the folds in the shalwar, the metal jewellery and the all-white turban in Two Arabs, or the layered necklaces, conch-shell bangles called tunglak and turquoise-studded headdresses in Group of Tibet Tartars. But then when you look beyond the apparent, stories of migration, resilience and resignation come to the fore—even if the original intention of the artist was simply to document and not to analyse.
Two Arabs spotlights followers of a British political agent, who might have accompanied him to Shimla from Kabul, where they had once served as intelligence agents. Eden came across two such “Arabs” while staying in Shimla and “while she thought the men ‘made excellent sketches’, she had a difficult time drawing them because of their loud and jolly attitude,” states the accompanying note.
In the eponymous book accompanying the exhibition, Prior writes that the quality and variety of Eden’s art from India is unsurpassed by any other British female artist practising there during the Regency and Victorian eras, except the equally prolific Charlotte Canning, or Countess Canning (1817-61), 20 years her junior, who possessed an exceptional talent for large scale botanical studies. Later, Marianne North followed in their footsteps and travelled across India from 1877-79, capturing her observations in paintings.
According to Prior, interest in their work, especially Eden’s, has been steadily increasing. “On her return to England in 1842, her depictions of Indian princes, other notables and ordinary people were circulated publicly, heralding the beginning of her fame, but many of her drawings, sketchbooks and watercolours were lost or forgotten, or they lay unseen in private hands or public collections for decades,” Prior writes. “Slowly, these works are emerging, inviting reassessment by a twenty-first-century audience.”
The exhibition has been divided into three sections, with the first one focusing on portraits—not just of royals, indigenous communities and everyday citizenry but also animals. In one of the images, Cheetas sent by the King of Oude to accompany the Governor General, Eden draws the Asiatic cheetahs, once used for hunting and coursing, with their caretakers. She first mentions seeing the big cats in Bharatpur in December 1839, where she spent considerable time observing the interactions between the handlers and the cheetahs. In her sketch of the Shootr-Suwar, attendants who would ride on camels for long distances carrying intelligence and dispatches, the image of the rider with a satchel on his back and a lopsided turban on his head make for an interesting viewing. However, it is the camel, with its embellished saddle and adornments around the throat, that really stands out.
And then there are her drawings of the Akali-Nihang, which are remarkably detailed as Eden captures their blue dress, the neela bana, turbans and their throwing chakrams. This section also allows the viewer to note the difference between her artistic and her writing style. According to Prior, her drawings and paintings are accurate and authentic depictions of what she saw. In her writing, however, Eden often tended to exaggerate or embellish for the amusement of the reader.
The second section is dedicated to the Eden Family Archives, acquired by DAG from the estate of former British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, and this includes a collection of sketchbooks, correspondence, and typescripts compiled by Violet Dickinson. It also contains over 40 original watercolours by Eden as well as works by Indian artists she acquired during her travels, and her original sketchbooks. This segment is followed by a significant collection of Lahore Company School paintings dating from the mid-19th century. Many of these feature the same figures, communities and occupations that appear in Eden’s work. “Their inclusion creates a compelling dialogue between British and Indian artistic traditions, offering visitors an opportunity to consider parallel modes of representation emerging from different cultural perspectives,” states the curatorial note.
Another aspect that runs like a thread through the exhibition is the recurring figure of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Eden had rare access to his court, which was unique for a female artist. According to Prior, Eden was granted a sitting after he had seen and admired some of her work. “She depicted him towards the end of his life, plainly dressed and devoid of accessories, but skilfully conveying his authority through a simple commanding gesture— his raised finger,” she says. Eden went on to paint portraits of the maharaja’s sons and grandson.
Princes & People of India also allows you to view Eden’s practice from the lens of class and gender. There is an interesting excerpt in the book by cultural historian Angela Poon, who mentions how Eden worked to cultivate the image of the “upper-class” artist. “She deliberately adopts a paradoxical, anti-intellectual pose that simultaneously serves to validate her upper-class position,” observed Poon.
According to Prior, Eden’s intelligence was frequently remarked upon, but being a blue stocking had somewhat negative connotations at the time. Therefore Eden downplayed her mental agility. Instead she made references to the “feminine” interests of the upper classes: fashion, music, dancing, gossiping, romance, letter writing and so on. “While she was certainly interested in these things, her true passion was painting and drawing to which she devoted an inordinate amount of time,” says Prior. “She had a strong interest in politics, which was not considered a particularly attractive attribute in a woman.” Ultimately, the exhibition asks the viewers to revisit a woman’s artistic voice as she tried to balance high-society privilege with an obsessive eye for everyday human detail.