coffee table
Regalia of the Raj

Power and Resistance
The Delhi Coronation Durbars. The Alkazi Collection of Photography.
Ed Julie E Codell. Mapin. Pages Rs 3,500

Prince of Bhavnagar and entourage from the album Chiefs and Representatives of India

THIS volume explores how photography represented, idealised and publicised the Delhi Coronation Durbars, occasions marking the formal coronations of English monarchs as empress and emperors of India: Victoria in 1877, Edward VII in 1903 and George V in 1911. Formally schematised and instituted by the Viceroys of India — Lytton, Curzon and Hardinge — the durbars were the first examples of the aestheticisation of imperial politics and the inscription of the Raj in a celebratory history that served to legitimate colonial presence.

Lasting several weeks, each lavish occasion was imaged and described in photographs, paintings, press illustrations, illustrated souvenirs, memoirs, photo albums and films.

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