Princes & People of India: Portraits by Emily Eden

Princes & People of India: Portraits by Emily Eden marks the first major presentation in India dedicated to Emily Eden, an artist, writer and keen observer whose work occupies a singular place in the visual history of the subcontinent.

Between 1836 and 1842, Emily Eden travelled across northern India, painting kings and courtiers, warriors and attendants, travellers and everyday people she encountered along the way, capturing a vivid panorama of a world in transition.

The exhibition brings together the complete published series of Eden's celebrated Portraits of the Princes and People of India (1844), material from the Eden Family Archives, and a rare group of Lahore Company paintings.

See 19th-century India through the eyes of a woman whose curiosity and eye for detail left behind one of its most enduring visual records.

Venue: DAG Delhi

Dates: 10 July - 1 August 2026

Timings: Monday to Saturday, 11:00 am - 7:00 pm

What to Expect:

1. The complete 1844 edition of Portraits of the Princes and People of India, featuring all twenty-four hand-coloured lithographs, the frontispiece and accompanying letterpress texts.

2. The Eden Family Archives, recently acquired from the estate of Anthony Eden, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, including original sketchbooks, journals, correspondence, watercolours and family papers that offer insight into Emily Eden's life and artistic process.

3. A rare visual record of the Sikh court and the nineteenth-century Punjab, including portraits of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the Lahore Company School paintings that present a local perspective on many of the same people and communities documented by Eden.