Review of 'Splendours of the Subcontinent: Four centuries of South Asian Paintings and Manuscripts'

Some 70 years after the British left India it is timely to look back at how the kings and queens of the United Kingdom came to amass one of the largest private collections of South Asian art in the world. Two conjoined exhibitions currently showing at the Queen’s Gallery do just that. Eastern Encounters: Four Centuries of Paintings and Manuscripts from the Indian Sub-Continent is the larger of the two displays, featuring works from Mughal rule in the early 17th century down to the last years of the Raj in the 1930s. Then, inset within the main exhibition, is A Prince’s Tour of India, 1875–6, which shows off all the gifts given to Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, during his traverse of the Indian subcontinent, one of several visits to India made by British royals between 1869 and 1921. Some items will be familiar, especially those from the permanent displays of Buckingham Palace and Osborne House, whilst the Padshahnama, the illustrated history of the early years of the reign of Shah Jahan (1628–58) was given a very extensive airing in 1997, to mark the 50th anniversary of Indian independence. However, this is the first time so many artefacts from the Royal Collections have been assembled together to tell a story about the long relationship between the British monarchy and South Asia.