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Lot Essay
The inscriptions are very delicately written and some have suffered, thus making reading difficult. They can however all be identified as leading members of the sikh community of the 1830s before the death of Ranjit Singh, as follows, reading clockwise from bottom in illustration:
[Maharaja] Ranjit Singh (1780--1839)
[Raja] Dhian Singh (1796-1843)
[Raja] Karak Singh (probably Kharak Singh 1802-1840)
[Raja] Sham Singh [Atariwala] (d.1846)
[Raja] Nau Nihal Singh (1821-1840)
[Raja] Suchet Singh (1801-1844)
[Raja] Sher Singh (1807-1843)
[Raja] Hira Singh (1816-1844)
For short biographical details of each raja, together with further portraits, please see W.G.Archer: Paintings of the Sikhs, London, 1966, esp.pp.104-113.
Four other Sikh shields are known which depict various princes. The most elaborate is in the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Museum, Amritsar, which has all the figural decoration worked in relief under the gilding (B.N.Goswamy: Piety and Splendour- Sikh Heritage in Art, Delhi, 2000, pp.76-7). The second, which most closely resembles the present example in having four mounted princes within a band of animals against vine, was presented to the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery in 1898 (acc. no.1898M38). A third is in the Wallace Collection, London, which places sixteen princes' busts within cartouches in the outer vine border around hunting scenes (Guy Frances Laking: Wallace Collection catalogues - Oriental Arms and Armour, London, 1964, p.158, not ill.). The fourth is recorded as having been given as a wedding present to the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1865; while the figures appear from the line drawings to be, like those in the first shield, in relief, they are more generic in type and appear not to represent individuals (Illustrated London News, May 6th, 1865, p.432).
[Maharaja] Ranjit Singh (1780--1839)
[Raja] Dhian Singh (1796-1843)
[Raja] Karak Singh (probably Kharak Singh 1802-1840)
[Raja] Sham Singh [Atariwala] (d.1846)
[Raja] Nau Nihal Singh (1821-1840)
[Raja] Suchet Singh (1801-1844)
[Raja] Sher Singh (1807-1843)
[Raja] Hira Singh (1816-1844)
For short biographical details of each raja, together with further portraits, please see W.G.Archer: Paintings of the Sikhs, London, 1966, esp.pp.104-113.
Four other Sikh shields are known which depict various princes. The most elaborate is in the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Museum, Amritsar, which has all the figural decoration worked in relief under the gilding (B.N.Goswamy: Piety and Splendour- Sikh Heritage in Art, Delhi, 2000, pp.76-7). The second, which most closely resembles the present example in having four mounted princes within a band of animals against vine, was presented to the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery in 1898 (acc. no.1898M38). A third is in the Wallace Collection, London, which places sixteen princes' busts within cartouches in the outer vine border around hunting scenes (Guy Frances Laking: Wallace Collection catalogues - Oriental Arms and Armour, London, 1964, p.158, not ill.). The fourth is recorded as having been given as a wedding present to the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1865; while the figures appear from the line drawings to be, like those in the first shield, in relief, they are more generic in type and appear not to represent individuals (Illustrated London News, May 6th, 1865, p.432).