Through the busy foyer and around the central staircase my friend and I crossed the old dining room of the Wallace Collection and emerged into the echoes of the atrium where modern visitors dine. The noise of conversation and clashing plates rose and filled the glassy vault of the room as we descended to the basement level, paid the modest entrance price, and forgoing the audio tour entered the exhibition through the colourful door.
Low intimate lighting, a dark but opulent colour palate and soft music create a personal atmosphere, as if you are going for a private audience. The initial room orients guests to the empire that Ranjit Singh ruled. We progressed from there into a long rectangular space, divided in two by cases of gleaming armour and weapons highlighting the role of the Sikhs as a warrior elite. The crowd was quite thick and we were only able to make headway after I had enthused for a few minutes about the image of Ranjit Singh meeting Yashwantrao Holkar in 1806, which I had used in one of my books.
At the turn of the room, we trailed past an imposing panoply of Punjabi and Hindustani armour, and it is always faintly satisfying to see the ornate helmets constructed so a warrior could wear a tight turban beneath them and the beautifully patterned maille. On the statement wall a bearded warrior rides to war, laden down with every conceivable weapon and military trapping, sometimes described as one of the Maharaja’s bodyguards or the man himself as a youth, he seemed to be giving everyone a parting glance as they passed by. As we began to move down the other side of the room what for many is the standout piece demanded our attention.
An iconic towering fortress of blue turban and pale steel introduces passersby to the order of Akalis, or immortals, a dedicated corps of devoted warriors who formed the beating heart of the Sikh army and were considered the epitome of religious devotion and martial prowess, connecting the spiritual and warrior traditions of the first Gurus to the modern Europeanised army that Ranjit Singh formed to defend his empire. It is impossible to pass these artifacts without being aware of their power, ‘they terrify me,’ my friend observed, daring to look into the endless gaze of the famous photograph of one of the Nizam of Hyderabad’s Akali bodyguards.
An open copy of Colonel James Skinner’s exceptional Tazkirat al-Umara greeted us as we entered the next room, meant to convey something of the drama and grandeur of the Lahore Court. This book is a brilliant example of the talent of Delhi artists of the Company School and expert Persian calligraphy celebrating the then-reigning princes and rulers of Hindustan, Rajasthan, and Punjab. The open page shows Ranjitji possibly from life, seated in 1830, and several other works of art show the Maharajah on the same distinctive throne.
We did not need to use our imaginations to give its grandeur realistic proportions, however, because the real thing was sitting square in the middle of the room. In honesty, no one except me sees, Skinner’s book first when they enter this room, the gilded chair is impossible to ignore and draws visitors to it today like moths to a flame, just as it did when the most powerful man in northern India occupied it. On the wall behind the royal seat hung a wondrous sash, just as breathtaking in its detail as the throne.
Beyond the throne stand the Firangis. The next room is dominated by two paintings, one of Jean Francois Allard, a French officer who had fought for Napoleon and became a general under Ranjit Singh, and the other of the Maharajah himself backed by marching troops semi-obscured by dust, but clearly bearing a French tricolour overhead. These colourful characters represent the military Diaspora of the Napoleonic wars, many of whom form an integral part of the story of the Sikh Empire.
The next two rooms represent the decline of Ranjit Singh’s Kingdom. After he died in 1839, it was a mere six years before internal destabilisation, exterior pressure, and political power struggles led to the first of two Anglo-Sikh Wars. Without the Lion of Punjab to rule, it took only a decade for the last independent power in India to fall, epitomised by the artifacts pertaining to the last Maharajah, Duleep Singh, in the final room. As opposed to the strength that radiates from practically every piece connected to Ranjit Singh, there is a regal but fragile sadness to the bust of Duleep. Made all the more so poignant because of its proximity to Lord Dalhousie’s replica throne which stands beside the exit door, almost brutalist in its un-gilded apery of Ranjit Singh’s golden age.
Ranjit Singh, Sikh, Warrior, King is being held at the Wallace Collection in London until the 20th of October and it is not to be missed. Important as a spectacle for history and art lovers generally, it is also a deeply important exhibition for the Punjabi and Sikh diaspora. In the capable hands of Davinder Toor, whom I was privileged to meet at the exhibition; the collection (drawn from numerous places) has an agency all its own and seems to offer an inside look at the life of Ranjit Singh that could not be done in the same way if presented outside the community.
Though in no way exclusionary to non-sikhs, I have talked with several Punjabi visitors who identify the importance of being able to hear a story told for them, not about them, and to able to get up close with these rare objects and claim them as part of their heritage. For those without this connection, there is still much to learn. The Sikh and Punjab community is an important and valued part of the UK, and it was heartening to see the excitement in the faces of young and old, who came not with school groups or on tours, but with their grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces, sons and daughters. No one visiting this exhibition can leave without the realisation that Ranjit Singh’s court valued the input of many cultures and ideas, and there is a lesson here of what acceptance, cooperation, and understanding can achieve in a single lifetime.
For those who cannot visit, or for those who want to remember their visit and indeed add depth to it, the beautifully produced catalogue guides you through the collection on display with expertly written chapters by Davinder Toor and a chapter by historian, William Dalrymple. The book continues with the themes of unity and enlightened rule, though never with simple adoration of a great hero; and there is, I think, and rightfully so, more of the man in the book than in the exhibition. The authors have dedicated large proportions of their lives to the preservation and transmission of the written and physical heritage through visual and textual storytelling.
This slim volume is a testament to their expertise. Besides the value of this book as a memento, and for its images, the text is laudable for its detail and precision, indeed it is an excellent and accessible starting point to Sikh history and the life of Ranjit Singh. While not to the scale of the 2018 Empire of the Sikhs exhibition, this more intimate look at the court of Ranjit Singh is something that doesn’t come around every day, and is an opportunity to learn more, not just about 19th century Punjab, but the modern UK, and so I highly encourage anyone reading this to heed the words of humble vakeels such as myself and to go thence to the Wallace Collection to wait upon the Lion of the Punjab
Viewing the faintly yellow square of Apsley house rising above the east end of South Carriage Drive, which runs along the lower edge of Hyde Park from the corner, I was reminded that Wellington had a famous eye for choosing commanding position. His London home has excellent access to the royal palaces and is on more or less of a direct line to Whitehall up Piccadilly. From here he could reach Windsor without, at first, having to ride through the city and likewise it was close to the great west road which led to his country house at Stratfield Saye, a mere jaunt of 8 or 9 hours with fast horses.
You enter Apsley House as guests have done for hundreds of years. Across the cobbled forecourt, mounting the steps, and twisting the well-used knob on the grand old brown wooden door. Walking inside, the light dims and the traffic noise is audibly reduced. Accommodating English Heritage staff members direct you to the ticket counter and close the door behind you. To one side of the desk a psychedelic line drawing of Lawrence’s Wellington stares questioningly from a marble table as you pay your admission fee. He asks a question the Great Duke would never have thought to ask: ‘Why so matte and conventional?’
APSLEY HOUSE “Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington” c.1815 by Sir Thomas LAWRENCE (1769-1830). WM 1567-1948
The art on the walls and the tables of gifts, which took a few casualties by the time I left, demand your attention. Here you can buy a book, postcards, pins and novelty mugs. Here you can peruse the great and rare works of biography and question why a Bernard Cornwell book is numbered amongst them. While upon the walls, famous artwork is already telling a story, the paint keeping vivid the faces of soldiers long faded, but just remember although this is the gift area, you can’t take those home, no matter how high your budget.
There are some stately homes that have an unmistakable air of dereliction but despite the patented stately home scent and echoing entrance hall Apsley is not one of them. It is the residence of an important man, it was where Wellington came when he had to fulfil his role as the ‘great man,’ and pillar of state. It was Number 1 London, the first house after the tollgates at Hyde Park Corner, a coordinate of London’s rich map that is resonant with history.
Courtesy, Apsley House, English Heritage.
The house has a vibrancy to it and a wonderful thing about Apsley is that you can feel the personality of the Duke of Wellington imprinted throughout. The layout and decor are still very close to how he would remember it. Make no mistake that the houses of the Wellesley family depend on the lingering aura of the victor of Waterloo to draw the crowds and it is incumbent on those who manage them to maintain these ancestral holdings as closely as possible to what they would have been in Great Duke’s time.
The private rooms are not open to the public but the grand reception suite that covers the 1st floor is a remarkable window into his achievements. It is the house of a public figure, a place for ostentation and ceremony, used for entertaining and formal engagements. Yet despite the opulence of the Waterloo Banquet Hall, the imperial style mouldings that curl and gleam across the ceilings and the rich yellow golds, ivory whites and plum reds that pervade the colour palette of the rooms, there is an underlying reserve and a simplicity which when compared to other mansions and palaces is almost restrained.
The house does not shout about its great owner, rather, with force and persuasion it directs attention. It is more refined than triumphant, more gracious that showy, much like the first Duke it makes practical use of grandeur. It is one of the only houses that I have visited that allows the mind to clearly picture the social and official round that once played out in these chambers, the bygone age to be imagined from the pages of Jane Austin, Makepeace Thackery and Leo Tolstoy.
To those who know nothing about Wellington and his legacy, Apsley House is the best place to start, but should you have no interest in the Great Duke this building has another attraction. It is one of London’s best, yet often most overlooked galleries of classical painting. While holding nothing, in terms of scale, as the large national institutions in the City of Westminster, every wall of Apsley nonetheless is covered with portraits and paintings dating from the renaissance to the baroque and onwards. The exceedingly fine collection is not only important to the military and political legacy of the Great Duke but are incalculably significant to the history of western art.
It is also quite a thought for an admirer of Wellington to look at a painting that was already century’s old when it was originally brought to Apsley, and to say with 100% certainty that the Duke saw this right here. Should you care to view the vast painting of the Waterloo Banquet you can see in the background that the artworks in that chamber have remained where they have rested for over one hundred years. This is a wonderful personal touch to a gallery, as it forms a remarkable sense of contact with the past. An immediacy, derived from the presence of an object in the place where it was originally curated, and from which, time alone separates from the past.
It will come as no surprise to British ears, used to the demands of other countries to give up the treasures held in their national museums, that the bulk of this collection was looted, but interestingly, it was not looted by the British. The collection was ‘acquired’ by King Joseph Bonaparte of Napoleonic Spain and then briefly by British and allied soldiers rummaging around the King’s baggage train after the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. The Duke, had the collection rescued and packed up in crates and then sorted, identified and catalogued. When it was compiled the list included names like Titian and Caravaggio, but also Velasquez and Morello, names that were almost unknown to wider Europe at the time. Wellington then offered to return the treasures to the restored rightful King of Spain, who declined them, saying that what the Duke had come by honestly, he must retain.
Since then the Dukes of Wellington have proved very generous in attempting to return artefacts in their possession. There would be many more items from the Duke’s India campaigns on view today had not one of his descendants returned the majority to the nation from whence they came. When Apsley House was gifted to the nation the art collection became accessible to the public and one could spend hours in the various chambers gazing into the endless, sombre, stare of Velasquez’s water seller, or the subtle chiaroscuro flamboyance of Caravaggio’s cheerful Musician.
Principally though, Apsley is resonant to the public life of one of Britain’s greatest public servants, whose international standing can be glimpsed by the rows of plates that gently gleam and glisten on their shelves in the subdued light of the Museum room’s many cabinets. There is so much of it that it seems as if in the years after the defeat of Napoleon, the royal porcelain factories of Europe were principally employed in making dinner Services for the Duke of Wellington.
My visit took a small party and myself through the echoing entrance hall, which is dark and cool, down a similarly recumbent flight of steps to the exhibition room. This part of the house must once have been part of servant’s quarters but now leads to a modest room which holds about four tall glass cases set into the walls which have been painted in midnight blue, gold and white, and serve as information boards explaining the course of the Mysore and Maratha campaigns.
Running until 3 November 2019 it is a repository of artefacts pertaining to the Duke’s time in India. He was of the opinion that he knew as much about soldiering as he ever did after returning from India. For a period of about eight years, beginning in 1797 and ending in 1805, Wellesley, as he then was, grew from a competent battalion commander to an uncommonly skilled general and administrator. ITV’s recent (mostly) historical drama, Beecham House is set in this period of Indian history. The British empire in India was growing at an alarming rate during this time due to Wellington’s elder brother, Governor General Richard Wellesley’s, ‘forward policy,’ which would establish the British as the major power in South Asia.
It was also the setting for the formation of a brilliant military mind which even reached the ear of Napoleon who, typically, derided Wellington as a mere general of Sepoys (a derivation of a Persian word that simply meant ‘soldiers’ in India). Wellington was thinking of himself in these terms on the very day of Waterloo when for the first and last time he faced the great disturber, it is said he remarked that Napoleon would now see how a general of Sepoys could defend a position and proceeded to do so. Though the apocryphal idea that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, I have never doubted that in reality the pillars of victory were established on the wide, dusty, famine haunted, plains of the Deccan in central India. It is by no accident that Wellington considered Assaye, fought in September 1803 as one of his most impressive military achievements. This was one of two battle honours which appeared embossed on the front of his funeral carriage, the other was Waterloo.
In the exterior hallway leading in, the gloom of the stairwell is banished. A gleaming cabinet containing plates illustrating events and battles of Wellington’s time in India is set into the right-hand wall. The cabinets are filled with interesting objects, some of which have been loaned from the Wellington estate at Stratfield Saye in Hampshire. A selection of aged books, that can be found listed as part of the famous library, quoted by Guedella stand in one. In another, two highly decorated drums silently fill their case, next to which are arrayed a brace of swords. One hefty blade belonged to Tipu of Mysore, while another appears to be the one General Wellesley is holding in several portraits and therefore is a contender as one of the few sabres he ever drew in anger. Opposite this is an intriguing display, including a brooch, clustered with gemstones, and a collection of carved and painted figurines showing the dress and daily activities of people in India.
An engraving of the dynamic Hopner painting of the then Major General Wellesley can be compared with a full colour reproduction of the original on the entrance wall. As you walk through the rooms on the first floor, the blue and white panels will continue, drawing your attention to other aspects of the Duke’s time in the east. The portrait of what Lady Longford described as a ‘dark eyed beauty’ of the porcelain skinned persuasion is prominent amongst a surrounding gallery of men in uniform. The delicate looks of Mrs. Freese, the wife of an officer who was in Srirangapatna (then Seringapatam) and who Wellesley was reputedly enamoured of, are a welcome feminine contrast and might be said to be among the first of the legion of ladies people imagine became his mistresses.
This exhibition serves as an excellent and insightful introduction to the formation of one of the most formidable military brains in history and will greatly inform the rest of what you see in the house. Take special note of the many portraits of Wellington as you go for a look at his evolving character. Compare the Robert Home portraits to the Hopner’s and fit them into a narrative. You can see through these the ambitious, promising, face of a younger brother to a great man; an unknown colonel of the 33rd just at the start of the Indian adventure and the increasingly confident, downright heroic in his own right, General by its end. In these sequences you can see a transformation of the image of a hero, with these in your mind fix your eyes on the Lawrence portraits of the victorious Marquess, Duke and Field Marshal of 1814 and 15, the face of the man who lived at Apsley.
For reproduction rights please contact, Stratfield Saye Preservation Trust. All rights reserved. Colonel Arthur Wesley, 33rd Foot.
Screened behind a near-impenetrable mask of command, Wellington the man is elusive, he is to be glimpsed not in portraits or artefacts but in the rooms themselves and the house and contents as a whole, the portraits of his friends and associates are as telling as any of the great man. The humour and taste, not least the remarkable reputation and personality of probably the greatest British public figure of the first part of the 19th century is indelibly stamped in luxuriant and gracious entertaining spaces of Apsley House.
In finishing I would like to thank English Heritage and the manager of Apsley House; Marcus Cribb, I am very grateful to you for arranging my visit. Thanks to Josephine Oxley, the able curator, for help with the images. Also to Robin who could not have been more helpful on my arrival and to the rest of the staff at Apsley who run and maintain this property for the nation.
Should anyone wish more information on visiting house and nearby Wellington arch, please visit https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/apsley-house/ . Remember that a joint ticket is available for Apsley House and Wellington Arch (which is located opposite) which houses a exhibition on the Battle of Waterloo along with the Duke of Wellington’s sword and famous Boots.
See you again for another Adventure in Historyland, Josh.
‘Empire of the Sikh’s is a full circle journey, bathed in tones of gouache and gold, that opens a window to the past and brings us to the present’.
Short Review.
The Empire of the Sikhs exhibition at the SOAS, a major exhibition presented by the UK Punjab Heritage Association, will close in a few weeks but I highly recommend you visit before it does, it’s free, spectacular and well worth the time. The installation is found in the exhibition rooms of the Brunei Gallery, a straight walk from the gates of the University of London. There is something there for student, art lover, culture junkie and newcomer alike.
I spent just under two hours at the exhibition, at first moving quite slowly, and if you linger as I did at each exhibit, paying close attention and examining them closely, you would probably need three. So if you want to linger at each display, recall there are over 100 artefacts with their descriptions and several large information panels, and the nature of the objects fairly beg you to take your time with them.
The exhibition is expansive in scope but intimate in expanse, I imagine that it could become quite crowded at busy times, should you happen to arrive at such a moment I’d advise being patient. If you can manage it, browse the books, pick a bench outside for a little while, or drop back down Store Street and sit in one of its chic cafes for half an hour.
Instructions are well posted on the door as you come in. If you have a family, don’t worry. People were bringing their children in, and a small play area where the kids can colour-in is situated to the right of the entrance door. Additionally the Brunei Gallery has a small but well stocked bookshop in the building and inside the exhibition there is a wonderful selection of illustrated books, many published by the excellent people at Kashi House, being sold in the exhibition, as well as post cards and prints, all very reasonably priced and of good quality.
The Empire of the Sikhs is undoubtedly one of the brightest lights of London’s summer exhibition season, and not to be missed.
Opening Date: 12 July 2018: Time: 10:30 AM
Finishes: 23 September 2018: Time: 5:00 PM.
(Late Opening on Thursdays. Closed Mondays and Bank Holidays.)
You must be logged in to post a comment.