Maharaja Ranjit Singh in procession, riding on an elephant through a bazaar, by Bishan Singh, North India, Amritsar or Lahore, circa 1860-70

Ex-private collection, France

This wonderfully detailed processional scene depicts Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Sikh leader, riding his elephant through a bazaar in Lahore. He is accompanied by an extravagant court entourage; his chowrie and chatra bearers and his falconer by his side, preceded by horse and camel-drawn carriages carrying his son Sher Singh and a courtesan, and his spiritual and political advisors Bhai Ram Singh and Raja Gulab Singh. In the foreground ascetics and street performers jostle for the Maharaja’s attention and in the background an array of craftsmen, kite-makers and vendors busily trade their wares.

A similar processional painting by Bishan Singh, circa 1870, is in the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, that depicts Maharaja Sher Singh (inv. no.AKM202-3). And another painting almost identical in composition and content was formerly in the Howard Hodgkin Collection and now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York (Topsfield 2012, p.180, no.77). Interestingly the Howard Hodgkin painting, like the present example, came from a private French collection and is inscribed along the lower left edge in French Souvenir a [...], which possibly indicates that these paintings were commissioned by French officers working at the Sikh court during the nineteenth century.

Ranjit Singh’s court was a cosmopolitan place, an assimilation of courtiers and soldiers from the West, firangis that had chosen to ally themselves with the Sikh empire. One of these firangis was Jean-Francois Allard (1785-1839) who was a French cavalry officer who served during the Napoleonic wars and was a recipient of the Legion d’honneur. When Napoleon's army was disbanded Allard ventured east, arriving in Lahore in 1822, where he became a favoured adviser of Ranjit Singh, being awarded the honour of The Bright Star of the Punjab. Ranjit Singh created an elite brigade, the Fauj-i-Khas, that was commanded by Allard and other Napoleonic veterans. By 1833 a third of the troops in the Punjab were under firangi control, and were known as the Francisi Campu, the French Legion.

Allard served Ranjit Singh in the Punjab until he died in 1839. He became a key figure in the development of diplomatic and trade relations between France and the Punjab that was to last throughout the nineteenth century. The French general Claude Auguste Court describes the splendour and size of Ranjit Singh’s durbars, hunts and royal tours. ‘In his tours he liked to bewilder those around him. No one could know the time of his departure or the direction he would take’ The maharaja took these tours to check on his provinces and offer opportunities for his people to sell their commodities (Toor 2024, p.52).