Indian Prince, Palace of Agra 1883 - 1893

Edwin Lord Weeks made this oil painting titled 'Indian Prince, Palace of Agra', probably in the 1880s or 90s. It shows a procession of mounted figures in what we presume to be India. Weeks was an American artist who made his name painting scenes of the Middle East and India. He travelled extensively, and was fascinated by the visual spectacle of courtly life, focusing on architecture, costume and pageantry. These paintings were exhibited in London and New York. Paintings like this tell us a lot about the cultural relationship between Europe, America and the East in the late nineteenth century. They reflect the fascination with other cultures, but also an unequal dynamic of power between the colonizing and the colonized world. As art historians, we can draw on travel writing, colonial documents, and the writings of artists themselves to better understand that relationship and its influence on the artworks it produced.