A Passage from India
Keith Nurse examines a collection of Indian art at the Powis Castle in Wales.
The finest British Collection of Indian art outside London – the so-called 'Indian curiosities' assembled by Robert Clive, Lord Clive of Plassey (1725-74) and his family – is now, for the first time, on public display almost in its entirety at Powis Castle, near Welshpool in mid-Wales.
The National Trust's new museum, housed in what was formerly the billiard room of this romantic Welsh border castle, is in itself an important tribute to the great soldier- administrator known to posterity as 'Clive of India'. Moreover, it offers revealing glimpses of the nature of British society in eighteenth-century India.
Previously, no more than about a fifth of the collection was available for public viewing. Now, in an evocative decorative setting known loosely as 'Hindoo' or 'Indo-Gothic', its significance can be fully understood, for as a record of its age it stands almost alone. All rival collections have been, in one way or another, dispersed or destroyed.
The National Trust's new museum, housed in what was formerly the billiard room of this romantic Welsh border castle, is in itself an important tribute to the great soldier- administrator known to posterity as 'Clive of India'. Moreover, it offers revealing glimpses of the nature of British society in eighteenth-century India.
Previously, no more than about a fifth of the collection was available for public viewing. Now, in an evocative decorative setting known loosely as 'Hindoo' or 'Indo-Gothic', its significance can be fully understood, for as a record of its age it stands almost alone. All rival collections have been, in one way or another, dispersed or destroyed.
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