A posthumous equestrian portrait

Royal Collection portrait RCIN 452414 is catalogued at Lahore around 1842, after Ranjit Singh’s death. The Eastern Encounters catalogue identifies an equestrian image associated with Imam Bakhsh and records an inscription naming the Lahori painter. Its discussion reads the parasol and halo through earlier imperial portrait traditions. This is an attributed interpretation of a particular work, rather than evidence that every portrait was commissioned by the sitter. Record the painting’s approximate date and author inscription separately from the later jewelled frame, whose installation the catalogue qualifies as probable. Its cited travel books and court chronicles remain references for further checking, not originals independently examined here.[1]

A meeting and a published print

The Asian Art Museum’s The Late Maharaja Runjeet Singh, object 1998.63.13, belongs to a different production history. It credits Emily Eden, a printer and a publisher, and dates the hand-painted chromolithograph to 1844. Its label quotes Eden’s journal about a meeting on 29 November 1838, concentrating on the ruler’s dress and posture. The encountered moment and the published object are therefore separate dates. Here the diary passage is known through the museum’s quotation. It does not become an original journal inspected by this project merely because the catalogue reproduces it.[2]

Preserve conflicting medium fields

Victoria Memorial Hall’s record R435-112 adds a useful catalogue problem. Its medium field says Watercolour, while the biographical description calls the present work a hand-coloured example from Eden’s printed portfolio. Preserve both statements and request clarification before deciding the object’s precise production technique from metadata alone. The entry records dimensions of 35.5 by 24.3 centimetres and a provenance line naming Messrs R B Das with the date 15 April 1911. That line is one documented collecting event; it is not a complete ownership chain from the original drawing to the museum.[3]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. Royal Collection Trust, Eastern Encounters catalogue. Maharajah Ranjit Singh, RCIN452414, Eastern Encounters cat.75 ↗institutional scholarly object catalogue · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Complete object entry: date/materials, posthumous attribution, imperial imagery, frame qualification, Markings and footnotes. Accessed 2026-11-02.Actual full entry read. The publication landing page returned access denied, but the object entry supplied its complete relevant body. Quoted nineteenth-century visitors and cited modern books were not independently read for this guide. The whole Eastern Encounters family includes label/guide and catalogue representations.Return to A posthumous equestrian portrait, paragraph 1 ↑
  2. Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. The Late Maharaja Runjeet Singh, 1998.63.13 ↗institutional print catalogue · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Full metadata and Object Label, including the attributed29 November1838 journal passage. Accessed 2026-11-02.Full relevant body supplied by the search reader. Direct access later showed a JavaScript/robot check and supplied no new content. The original print, photograph and journal were not independently examined. Museum Eden labels are pooled with the Sher Singh print label.Return to A meeting and a published print, paragraph 1 ↑
  3. Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata / National Portal and Digital Repository for Museums of India. Ranjit Singh, R435-112 ↗institutional object catalogue with conflicting medium statements · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Complete object record: Medium, artist biography’s present-work description, Provenance and Dimensions. Accessed 2026-11-02.Actual full relevant record body read. The Watercolour field and present-work hand-coloured-print description are both preserved; no technique is independently resolved. The 1911 provenance line is not expanded into an undocumented ownership chain. The site’s visitor/date counters are not used as publication dates.Return to Preserve conflicting medium fields, paragraph 1 ↑
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Record PH-COL-0060 · English edition · human review not performed