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Title:
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Dalip Singh
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Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
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This is a version of the bust of Maharajah Dalip Singh, which Queen Victoria commissioned from Marochetti and presented to Prince Albert on his 37th birthday on 26 Aug.1856. The subject had been Maharajah of the Punjab, but had been persuaded to abdicate after the British annexed the territory in 1849. He thereafter converted to Christianity and lived on a British government pension. In 1854 a splendid full length portrait of him was painted by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, some of the costume details in which are followed by Marochetti in this bust. The painted portrait is now at Osborne House in the Isle of Wight. After living for a time in England as a country gentleman, Dalip Singh became embittered and reconverted to Sikhism. He spent his final years in France, though he and the Queen were reconciled before his death in 1893. As in the case of the more or less contemporary bust of another Indian favourite of the Royal Family, Princess Gouramma of Coorg, who it was hoped at one point that Dalip Singh would marry, Marochetti employed William T. Millais, brother of the Preraphaelite painter, to colour his busts of the Maharajah (see the entry on the bust of Princess Gouramma). This departure was much commented upon at the time. In the case of the bust of Dalip Singh, which she gave to Prince Albert as a birthday present, the Queen considered that it had been spoilt by the addition of colour, and she persuaded Marochetti to remove it. It is fortunate that this version, also in marble, retains its original colouring, though worn through in places. (for a fuller account of this bust and its colouring, see Caroline Hedengren-Dillon, Polychromy in the Work of Baron Marochetti (1805-1867) Part 1, on The Victorian Web)
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Material(s): |
Marble
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Medium: |
Unassigned |
Finish: |
- |
Technique: |
Carved and painted |
Genre: |
Portrait Bust
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Colours: |
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Year: |
1856 |
Height: |
0.8 metres |
Width: |
0 metres |
Depth: |
0 metres |
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Key: |
5769 |
Acc. No.: |
5769 |
Col. No.: |
5769 |
Number of views: |
2516 |
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