Prologue: On the Political Implications of Art and Architecture

In the long decade after the victorious Boer and Boxer Wars in Africa and China and before the outbreak of the First World War, the short period marking the heyday of British (as well as other European states') imperialism, it was the British Empire in India which became the focus of Great Britain's imperial grandeur and splendour. To commemorate the announcement of Edward VII as Emperor of India, the then Governor General and Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon (1898–1905), declared in 1901 his intention to organize a Coronation Darbar to be held at Delhi. The Delhi Darbar of 1902–03 was a massive demonstration of Britain's global military power, almost 40,000 soldiers including Indian regiments having just returned from the African and Asian theatres of war paraded in front of the Viceroy and the assembled dignitaries of Britain, Germany and India. The Delhi Darbar was also a lucid demonstration of colonial cultural patronage, collecting and displaying the best samples of contemporary Indian artefacts at the Delhi Arts Exhibition, which was part of the huge official programme accompanying this rather pompous imperial function.

The Delhi Arts Exhibition was part of a rather young tradition of industrial and art exhibitions, which began in 1851 with the ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations’ in London, to be followed by the Paris International Exhibition of 1855.