Sold for £1100 in the Indian section of the Mullock’s sale was this chromolitho caricature portrait of ‘The Maharajah’, by Spy (Leslie Ward) from a November 1882 issue of Vanity Fair. The last heir to the Sikh kingdom, Duleep Singh was only five when a series of assassinations meant this youngest child of Ranjit Singh succeeded to the title of maharajah under the protection of his mother.
Maharani Jindan Kaur took on the British East India Company, which was looking to annex this fabulously wealthy state, but was ultimately defeated in her attempts to hold the Punjab for her young son. In 1854 Duleep was shipped off to England by the British, adopted as a godson by Queen Victoria, converted to Christianity and brought up as an English gentleman.
The lot that gained all the publicity in a recent Shropshire sale, even national newspaper coverage, was a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.