
May one see it?
London, United Kingdom
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
This conventional portrait of the Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh (r. 1801-1839) shows him riding a white stallion through a sketchily depicted landscape accompanied by a bearer. The unknown artist has included the traditional indications of royalty, the halo and parasol, derived from Mughal painting.
The portrait was given to the museum in 1953 by O.E. Dickinson, the great-nephew of Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India (1836-1842), who brought it back to England in 1842. Lord Auckland had visited the Sikh court in 1838 where he must have acquired this painting, with six others that were also given to the museum.
Victoria and Albert Museum