The painter-prince

I was more than happy to get rid of this useless attendant (the security person assigned to him), and enjoyed going out anonymously. It is such a pleasure for me to stroll around in unknown towns and to observe the hustle and bustle in the local streets and markets. And if this had appealed to me in Europe, how much more in this country (India), where I encounter hundreds of new exciting images at every step.” — Prince Waldemar of Prussia writing in his notebook; ca. 1845

Monbijou is the name of a castle and a palace in Germany that was once located in the central part of Berlin. The place was destroyed in the Second World War, but there, in the year 1849, were installed, oddly enough, two large cannons that had come all the way from India. Not many know about it, but with these hangs a story. The cannons were a gift conferred by the East India Company, at the recommendation of Lord Hardinge, upon a Prussian prince, Waldemar, in appreciation of his ‘bravery in the war’ that the British had just fought, and won, against the Sikhs in the post-Ranjit Singh period. The prince had fought on the side of the British, and the cannons, part of a huge group numbering 230 which was captured, were now booty of war which the winning side could use as it pleased. The war was over and Prince Waldemar — who, it needs to be recalled, had come to India as a visitor, not a mercenary, and just happened to be caught in the maelstrom of the times, partially on account of being a scion of a royal dynasty which had relations with the family of the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces — was on the point of returning home to Germany. This ‘gift’ he decided to take back with him. The cannons made an adventurous journey, for they made their way on boat to London first, from where they travelled slowly to Berlin. When they were formally installed in the Monbijou castle, with much fanfare, the newspaper, Hessische Staatsarchiv, published from Darmstadt, noted that one of the cannons bore an engraved inscription in Persian, stating that they were the ‘cannons of Dewan Moti Ram’ [who had served as Governor of Kashmir] and, named ‘the pillar of the battle’, they had ‘reached Lahore through the efforts of Kadir Bakhsh’. The inscription added that it ‘was made in Samvat 1886 (=1819 CE) by Muhammad Hijat under the Singh Sahib, the ruler of Punjab, Ranjit Singh’.

This little snippet apart, one knows a fair amount about this young German prince, much of itthrough the writing of Jutta Jain-Neubauer. As she notes, it was following the advice of the celebrated scholar Alexander von Humboldt that the brave Prince (1817-1849) — who had undergone the usual military training early in life — decided to visit India, for there was in him ‘a deep perception for the beauty that nature unfolds in various regions …which could be relished through the potency of the language as well as through the magic of the figurative arts ….’ The year was 1844. The Prince did not set off alone, though: in his company were friends — a Captain and a Lieutenant, a botanist and a medical doctor — and four months after they sailed from Europe they reached Calcutta, via Athens, Egypt and Ceylon. Here the group roamed about extensively, taking in India: Calcutta, naturally, and then Patna, Benares, Delhi, Lahore, Bombay, among other places. Princely cities and monuments especially interested the prince for he was in Jaipur and Gwalior and Indore, and spent time at Elephanta. His landing up in Punjab is of special interest, for here, in those troubled years after the great Maharaja had passed away, there was an unheard of scramble for power: a story of ambitions and intrigue and betrayal, not unmixed with occasional flashes of loyalty and courage, was unfolding. The plans of the East India Company were coming uncovered and, when the war broke out, the Prince found himself fighting, although — from the Indian standpoint — for the wrong side.

But nothing went un-noticed by the Prince during his Indian visit. All through his stay, he was writing a diary, filled with acute observations about people and places. There was enough here in this land of ours for an inquisitive mind to absorb and mull over. Everything was different, if not necessarily strange. The sights were decidedly novel — dense forests, snow-covered peaks, bleak plains, strangely clad men doing things that were unknown or never experienced in Europe — and the Prince, a gifted painter himself, kept drawing all the time. What he left behind in these visual recordings is arresting: a sadhu emerging from a monastery to float an earthen lamp on the sacred waters of a river; lofty peaks almost bending down to caress the shikharas of temples; men dragging yak-bulls up through rocky terrains; soldiers gathering and re-grouping on the field of battle; towering minarets, nobles on elephant back, intrepid riders on galloping mounts, Afghan mercenaries.

One needs to recall here that these were times when the camera had not entered India yet. To see India laid out for us in the manner in which Prince Waldemar — and many other visitors to our land who wielded the painter’s brush — did, is therefore a pleasure and a privilege even when we know that there are here sights that have been carefully neatened. The views that the Prussian Prince painted were published in two volumes in the form of lithographs, soon after his death at the young age of 32: they were entirely appropriately titled: In Memory of the Travels of Prince Waldemar of Prussia to India. Alexander von Humboldt wrote an Introduction to the volumes. What he said was how he admired these works, for he found them consistently and richly endowed ‘with life and artistic value’.