Horses and jewels of Runjeet Singh - 1844

 


 Posted on: 19 April 2016

Horses and jewels of Runjeet Singh - 1844

This lithograph is taken from plate 14 of Emily Eden's 'Portraits of the Princes and People of India'. It shows one of the favourite horses of Maharaja Ranjit Singh with the head officer of his stables. Passionately fond of horses, Singh had them adorned with costly jewelled trappings, mostly emeralds, which were said to be worth more than £300,000. He inspected his numerous horses daily and on special occasions they were adorned with the finest jewels of his treasury, including 'KOHINOOR', at the time the largest diamond known to exist.

Singh sent his large collection of precious stones to the Governor-General's camp for the ladies to inspect. Eden drew and numbered several of them. Number 1 is the Kohinoor, which was originally taken from the Peacock Throne at Delhi by Nadir Shah and later extorted by Singh from Shah Shuja of Afghanistan. Number 2 is a pearl: Ranjit considered pearls next in value to the Kohinoor, and had long strings of them. Number 3 is an uncut ruby with Persian characters engraved upon it. Number 4 is a Topaz, which stone, wrote Eden, Indians valued more than Europeans. Numbers 5, 6 and 7 are emeralds from the trappings of the horse.

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Runjeet Singh - 1844 from en.wikipedia.org
Ranjit Singh (13 November 1780 – 27 June 1839) was the founder and first maharaja of the Sikh Empire, ruling from 1801 until his death in 1839.
Runjeet Singh - 1844 from commons.wikimedia.org
16 Jun 2024 — English: A portrait of Ranjit Singh, Maharaja of the Punjab, by Emily Eden, London, circa 1844. “The Late Maha Raja Runjeet Singh,” Portraits of ...
















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