October 12, 2020: Bonhams’ Islamic and Indian Sale will be led by glorious jewels from the royal treasury of Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Punjab. The sale, which will be held on October 26, will comprise three precious jewelry pieces which once belonged to Maharani Jindan Kaur, last wife of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, and were inherited by her granddaughter Princess Bamba Sutherland.
Maharani Jindan Kaur (1817- 1863) is known for her resistance against the British encroachment in the Punjab region. While she was imprisoned and later escaped to Nepal in 1848, more than 600 jewelry pieces were confiscated from the storied Lahore treasury. The jewels in the sale – the gem-set gold forehead pendant (chand-tikka), gem-set gold mirrored roundel and a pearl-mounted gold pendant, were most certainly in the casket handed back to her by British authorities when she agreed to live in London with her son, Duleep Singh, with whom she was reunited in Calcutta in 1861. The jewels are estimated at £60,000-80,000.
Other highlights include a rare and large 19th century panoramic watercolour view of the Golden Temple and the city of Amritsar, attributed to Cyril Herbert (1847-1882). Estimated at £60,000-80,000, this is believed to be the largest depiction of the Golden Temple in watercolour ever to have come into the market.
A large and impressive portrait, dated 1853, of Rajah Shere Singh Attariwala, Sikh commander and general, once owned by the Marquess of Dalhousie, Governor-General of India by Colesworthy Grant (1813-1880) is estimated at £35,000-45,000. A portrait of Viscount Hardinge of Lahore, Governor-General of India, accompanied by his two sons and his aide-de-camp Colonel Wood, on the battlefield after the victory at Ferozeshah during the first Anglo-Sikh war by Sir Francis Grant (1803-78) is estimated at £40,000-60,000.
