Princes & People of India

Members of the Eden family played prominent roles in British society and politics for nearly two hundred years. The most famous is Anthony Eden, Conservative Prime Minister in the 1950s. But it began with his ancestor William Eden, a Whig aristocrat and MP in the 1770s. Among William’s many children, George Eden (Lord Auckland) held leading administrative posts, including Governor General in India from 1836-42. One of the sharpest minds in the family (rather sharper than George) was his younger sister Emily (1797-1869), an artist, poet and novelist. Being unmarried, she elected to accompany her bachelor brother to India, to act as his hostess. So too did their youngest sibling Frances (known as Fanny).

Both Emily and Fanny accompanied George on his travels throughout India, including on his expedition from Calcutta to Lahore, to visit the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1838. Along the way, Emily drew portraits of people she met. Her subjects include Afghan and Sikh nobles; Akali-Nihangs and hill people; faqirs, domestic servants and hunting attendants – anyone who caught her eye, whether young or old. On the Edens’ return to England, twenty-five of her sketches were engraved as lithographs and published as Portraits of the Princes and People of India in 1844.

This exhibition includes a complete set of prints from that series, along with letters, typescripts, sketchbooks, and other materials from the Eden family archive, recently acquired by DAG. We have also displayed other works that relate to the court of Ranjit Singh and to the Punjab of his time, including a remarkable set of Company paintings made in Lahore around 1840, giving a local perspective on the same subjects.

Witty and observant, Emily Eden could also be catty and condescending in her writing. But her images give us a unique insight into Punjab at the close of the golden era of Ranjit Singh’s reign, and at the start of Queen Victoria’s.