The primary significance of the Assemblage was for Queen Victoria to assume the title of ‘Empress’, even though she did not visit India herself. Another significance was to establish the intimacy between the colonial rulers and the various ‘native’ princes of India, thus drawing an unbroken chain between India’s older rulers and their new ones.

Repurposing the new title of the ‘Imperial Assemblage’, Wheeler wrote: ‘An Imperial Assemblage is one of the oldest institutions in India. From the remotest antiquity the Rajas and princes of India have assembled to celebrate the establishment of a new empire, or the accession of a new suzerain. The story of such gatherings is told in the earliest traditions of the two famous Hindu epics, — the Ramayana and Maha-Bharata. To this day the memories are household words throughout India. In the age of Rajput sovereignty such meetings were known as Raja-suyas and Aswamedhas. In the age of Muhammadan rule they were known by the name of Durbars.’

To justify why Delhi was chosen for hosting the event, instead of Calcutta—the colonial capital of the time—Wheeler went back even further in time, into the realm of myth: ’There is no city in the British empire so fitted as Delhi for the assumption of the sovereignty of India. It is seated near one of the most ancient sites in all India. It is associated with nearly every era in the history of the past, — Rajput, Muhammadan and Mahratta… They stand in the midst of relics which belong to the remotest antiquity; the remains of a metropolis which may claim to be coeval with the oldest cities in the ancient world. The ruins of Indraprastha, the “precinct of Indra,” lie buried beneath the neighbouring mounds. The kings, the nobles, the once teeming population have shrivelled into dust and ashes. The traditions are preserved to this day in the Hindu epic of the Maha- Bharata.’

The Imperial Assemblage was not just an act of renewal, but also revival of many other claims of authority upon the capital throughout its temporal and imagined pasts.

The administration was still anxious two decades after the revolt of 1857 nearly displaced British rule from Delhi, so it sought to be unambiguous in the visual messages it offered. Commenting on the architecture, especially the temporary structures built to host the spectators during the Assemblage, Wheeler wrote: ‘There was nothing oriental in these structures. They were not borrowed from any native designs. They were tented pavilions covered in to keep off the sun, otherwise they were exposed to the open air. They were rich in colour, as was suitable beneath an Indian sun.’

For instance, the dais, from which the viceroy proclaimed the assumption of the imperial title by Queen Victoria, was designed by Lockwood Kipling, and came in for some criticism for its ‘Victorian feudal’ style. Wheeler’s book also carried photographs of famous Delhi monuments like Humayun’s Tomb, the Qutub Minar and the Kashmere Gate, taken by the Bourne & Shepherd studio.

Organised by Lord Curzon, the ceremony was also meant to signal the obedience of Britain’s colonial subjects in the face of a rising tide of Swadeshi sentiments, and the obsolescence of India’s princely rulers, who no longer posed any realistic political threat to the British and could be safely enjoyed as pure spectacle. The official historian of the event, Stephen Wheeler, described the appearance of the Indian rulers thus: ‘not so much a series of Indian Chiefs, mounted in their pride, to be scanned, as each went by, like portraits in a picture gallery; but rather a resplendent vision of Asiatic pomp, interminably changing, in colour and arrangement, like tints in a kaleidoscope, yet, in its general aspect, ever the same…’

Accompanied by many kinds of images, including engraved plates, stereographic photographs and postcards, the publications around this Durbar did their best to reproduce the splendour of the event. While it attracted many chroniclers, one of the most important text and picture albums was made by Mortimer Menpes—an Australian-born British painter, author, printmaker, and illustrator—and his daughter, Dorothy Menpes. He created a series of watercolor paintings and etchings depicting the Durbar and stayed in Camp Number One called ‘The Millionaires' Camp’ in Delhi. Dorothy wrote the text for The Durbar.

Menpes brought out the romance of the occasion, not least by his references to the work of J. M. W. Turner. Commenting on the most anticipated event, the ‘state entry’, he wrote: ‘This was a scene for Turner. Turner, who could paint the sun, was the only man to paint this procession of native rulers … a group of elephants in gold, emerald green, and jewels, looking like bubbles ready to burst with brilliance, and making the surrounding colours faded and pale by comparison. For once one felt grateful to the dust, the dust that at times rose in clouds and hid portions of those marvellous colour-schemes from our sight, as with a curtain of yellow gauze, bestowing upon them a dream-like mystery marvellously enhancing their unearthly beauty.’

When he found a particular display lacklustre, on the other hand, he felt the need to point it out, contrasting oriental splendour with western ‘ugliness’: ‘…the colour was a little saddening; and the costume was evidently disappearing, scumbled over by Western ugliness. The men knit themselves together and marched squarely in rigid lines. They were more angular and had less of that delightful swing and looseness so characteristic of the East.’