NEW DELHI: An Indo-French exhibition, currently on in the city, opens a historical window into the lives of 12 Indian rulers and their French-speaking officers from 1750-1850.
Drawing from the archives of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and the National Museum here, the collaborative exhibition, “Rajas, Nawabs and Firangees, Treasures from the French and the Indian archives (1750-1850)”, opened on Friday.
The exhibition has put on showcase unseen manuscripts, paintings and artefacts that offer glimpses of the Indian court life, through the eyes of the French-speaking officers — few of which acquired high military positions and were endowed with jagirs.
Organised by Alliance Francaise de Delhi, the United Service Institution of India, and the National Museum, the exhibits, curated by Samuel Berthet, are contextualized within the rise of British East India Company over the subcontinent, and the successive defeats of the army of the French East India Company at its hands.
Portraits of 12 duos of French officers and their Indian rulers from erstwhile courts in present-day Kerala, Punjab, Bengal, Awadh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Poona, Hyderabad and Madurai mark the first section of the exhibition.
The second part of the exhibition shows a selection of the wide collection of Indian sacred texts preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, the French National Library.
(With PTI inputs)