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Title:
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Dalip Singh
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Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
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(Photo:
Royal Collection Trust/ © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020)
RC IN 4152
This bust of Maharajah Dalip Singh was commissioned from Marochetti by Queen Victoria as a gift for Prince Albert on his 37th birthday on 26 August 1856. The sitter 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 fine full-length portrait of him was painted by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. Many of the costume details in the Marochetti sculpture are the same as those in the painted portrait. However, whereas in Winterhalter's painting the subject has a painted miniature of the Queen suspended around his neck, in the bust he wears a low-relief portrait of her. What Queen Victoria actually presented to Albert in 1856 was a coloured plaster version. The Queen however took exception to the colouring, and after the sculptor had experimented with less vivid colouring, what he finally delivered was this white marble bust . (for further details on Marochetti's colouring of busts of Indian subjects, see the entry on the bust of Princess Gouramma of Coorg in the Royal Collection) Another marble version of the bust exists in a French private collection, which has retained its colour. (see entry) Relations between Dalip Singh and the Royal Family spectacularly broke down in the ensuing years. He converted back to Sikhism, offered his services to the Russians and made a claim for the return of the Punjab. He passed his later life in France, and only shortly before his death in 1893 was some kind of reconciliation effected between him and the Queen. (see J. Marsden, Victoria and Albert, Art and Love , London, 2010, p.163
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Material(s): |
Marble
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Medium: |
Unassigned |
Finish: |
- |
Technique: |
Carved |
Genre: |
Portrait Bust
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Location: |
Osborne House (Isle of Wight) Royal Collection, , ,
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Colours: |
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Year: |
1857 |
Height: |
0.81 metres |
Width: |
0 metres |
Depth: |
0 metres |
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Key: |
5847 |
Acc. No.: |
5847 |
Col. No.: |
5847 |
Number of views: |
2680 |
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