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Lot Essay
This suit of armour and the following lot are fine examples from the renowned Lahore workshop. The armours date to the first half of the 19th century. It was at this time that the city served as the capital of the Sikh Empire under Ranjit Singh (1801-39), the ‘Lion of the Punjab’, who managed to unite the various Sikh groups (misls) in the Punjab and establishing an empire with its capital and Ranjit Singh’s court at Lahore.
Lahore had a long established reputation as a centre for the manufacture of high quality arms and armour from when the city was under Mughal control. After coming under Sikh control, Lahore’s armourers continued to manufacture weapons and armour of the same high quality and employed many of the techniques. The attribution of our two suits of armour to the Lahore workshops during this particular period is evident upon close comparison of our armours and their details with those with an established attribution. Whilst it is rare for complete suits of armour to come to market, let alone two, the following two lots are particularly exciting for their attribution to the renowned Lahore workshops during this short window of Sikh control. Furthermore, it is noteworthy to be able to offer two Sikh armours given the strong military tradition which became so closely interlaced with the Sikh religious and political identity (I. Knight, ‘The Military Sikhs’, in Susan Stronge, Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms, London, 1999, p. 136).
Although continuing many of the established techniques and forms, under Sikh patronage new forms of arms and armour were manufactured. One example is the unique helmet type which allowed for a tightly bound Sikh turban to be worn underneath. The known examples of these helmets are made of watered steel with bands of fine gold-overlaid floral decoration. These helmets and their decoration can then be matched to further components and suits of armour which can thus be given the same attribution. This decoration is shared with components of our armours, notably the plates of the chahar-aina and armguards, dastanas, of the plate and mail armour. In each case our armours have similar stacked bands of gold decoration terminating with an outer border of interlacing split-palmettes.
The decoration of the steel plate armour also relates to a number of examples of arms and armour from Lahore during the Sikh period with a well-established provenance. Following the annexation of the Punjab in the wake of the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849 many pieces ended up in British private and institutional collections. These were mostly either taken in battle or when the treasury in Lahore was emptied. A further tranche of material, now mostly in Royal Armouries Collections in Leeds, was gifted to Prince Edward by various Maharajas during the course of his 1867 tour of the Punjab. A tulwar from the Lahore Armouries entered the Royal Collection as a gift from the East India Company (inv. XXVIS.138) has very similar floral gold-overlaid floral decoration to that found on the helmets of our two armours. Also part of the Royal Armouries Collection is a complete suit of assembled plate and mail armour, composed of mail shirt and trousers, chahar-aina, armguards, helmet and sword belt, all of which are very close in form and design to the components of our two suits (XXXVIA.6).
One of the most important sources of Sikh material comes from the former collection of Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General of India during the Second Anglo-Sikh War. Dalhousie’s estate and collection was sold at Colstoun, Scotland, by Sotheby’s, 21-22nd May 1990. From that sale lots 18 and 22 are two shallow ribbed helmets of very closely related form and decoration to the two offered here. Another helmet of similar form and decoration to ours is in the Victoria & Albert Museum (118A-1852), London, which was bought as a modern piece from Lahore at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Lahore had a long established reputation as a centre for the manufacture of high quality arms and armour from when the city was under Mughal control. After coming under Sikh control, Lahore’s armourers continued to manufacture weapons and armour of the same high quality and employed many of the techniques. The attribution of our two suits of armour to the Lahore workshops during this particular period is evident upon close comparison of our armours and their details with those with an established attribution. Whilst it is rare for complete suits of armour to come to market, let alone two, the following two lots are particularly exciting for their attribution to the renowned Lahore workshops during this short window of Sikh control. Furthermore, it is noteworthy to be able to offer two Sikh armours given the strong military tradition which became so closely interlaced with the Sikh religious and political identity (I. Knight, ‘The Military Sikhs’, in Susan Stronge, Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms, London, 1999, p. 136).
Although continuing many of the established techniques and forms, under Sikh patronage new forms of arms and armour were manufactured. One example is the unique helmet type which allowed for a tightly bound Sikh turban to be worn underneath. The known examples of these helmets are made of watered steel with bands of fine gold-overlaid floral decoration. These helmets and their decoration can then be matched to further components and suits of armour which can thus be given the same attribution. This decoration is shared with components of our armours, notably the plates of the chahar-aina and armguards, dastanas, of the plate and mail armour. In each case our armours have similar stacked bands of gold decoration terminating with an outer border of interlacing split-palmettes.
The decoration of the steel plate armour also relates to a number of examples of arms and armour from Lahore during the Sikh period with a well-established provenance. Following the annexation of the Punjab in the wake of the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849 many pieces ended up in British private and institutional collections. These were mostly either taken in battle or when the treasury in Lahore was emptied. A further tranche of material, now mostly in Royal Armouries Collections in Leeds, was gifted to Prince Edward by various Maharajas during the course of his 1867 tour of the Punjab. A tulwar from the Lahore Armouries entered the Royal Collection as a gift from the East India Company (inv. XXVIS.138) has very similar floral gold-overlaid floral decoration to that found on the helmets of our two armours. Also part of the Royal Armouries Collection is a complete suit of assembled plate and mail armour, composed of mail shirt and trousers, chahar-aina, armguards, helmet and sword belt, all of which are very close in form and design to the components of our two suits (XXXVIA.6).
One of the most important sources of Sikh material comes from the former collection of Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General of India during the Second Anglo-Sikh War. Dalhousie’s estate and collection was sold at Colstoun, Scotland, by Sotheby’s, 21-22nd May 1990. From that sale lots 18 and 22 are two shallow ribbed helmets of very closely related form and decoration to the two offered here. Another helmet of similar form and decoration to ours is in the Victoria & Albert Museum (118A-1852), London, which was bought as a modern piece from Lahore at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851.