First edition of the works of St Augustine for sale
An annotated edition of St Augustine’s complete works edited by Erasmus is due to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in Paris on May 18th. The 10-volume edition was printed in Basle, Switzerland, between 1527 and 1529 and is meticulously annotated from 1532, two years after Henry’s VIII break with the Roman Catholic Church. The identity of the annotator is unknown and the majority of the annotations have not been studied academically. The volumes are estimated to fetch between €200,000 and €300,000 (£177,000-£266,000).
Mark Brown reports in The Guardian.

Global culture officials meet in Cairo to demand return of ancient treasures to their countries of origin
Representatives from 20 different countries are meeting in Cairo, today, to discuss how to recover ancient treasures which they claim have been stolen and displayed overseas. The two-day conference is organised by Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities headed by Zahi Hawass. Attendees include representatives from Peru, Greece, Italy and China. Greece, for example, demands that the Parthenon Marbles are given back by the British Museum; officials in Peru demand the return of Inca treasures from Yale University.
The BBC reports.

The first urban society in the Middle East
Science Daily reports on the latest research by a team of archaeologists from the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute which has uncovered new evidence about a prehistoric society believed to be one of the world’s first urban civilizations in the ancient Middle East. The mound of Tell Zeidan in the Euphrates River Valley near Raqqa, Syria, has not been built upon or excavated for 6,000 years. However, recent excavations suggest that a society rich in trade, copper metallurgy and pottery production and one of the first to develop social classes according to power and wealth, existed on the site between 4,000 and 6,000 BC.

Serbia apologises for Srebrenica massacre
Last Wednesday, March 31st, Serbia passed a resolution condemning the massacre in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war. There were 127 votes in favour of the resolution in the 250-member parliament.
Serbia hopes to join the European Union next year; however, the EU has made its membership contingent on improved cooperation with La Hague and efforts to find Serbian General Ratko Mladic, who is believed to be responsible for the massacre along with Karadzic.
But Serbia is still struggling to come to terms with its past. The resolution sparked considerable opposition. It was watered down and does not describe the massacre as ‘genocide’ as it has been labelled by the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
Der Spiegel reports.
The trial of the former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic began in August 2009. In Conflicting Truths: The Bosnian War Nick Hawton reflects on his time reporting in a region where history is still used to justify war.
In Remembering Srebrenica Suzanne Bardgett describes the setting up of the Srebrenica Memorial Room at the scene where the Bosnian genocide of July 1995 began to unfold.

Former SS member sentenced to life imprisonment
Heinrich Boere, aged 88, has been condemned to life imprisonment for the murder of three Dutch civilians in 1944. The sentence, passed a couple of weeks ago at the Aachen regional court, marked the end of one of the last war crime trials in Germany. Boere joined the SS in 1940 and in 1942 became part of the ‘Germanic SS in the Netherlands’, a special unit charged with breaking any signs of German resistance in the German-occupied Netherlands.
Der Spiegel reports.

by Sheila Corr

What does a gallery devoted to portraits of famous British people do with those whose identities have been disputed since their acquisition last century, now being classed ‘unknown sitter’? The National Portrait Gallery have dealt with this dilemma in a particularly creative way by asking seven well-known writers to imagine the lives of these 16th and 17th century men and women based simply on what they look like and how they’re shown.

Alongside but separate, a completely different process was going on as Curator Tarnya Cooper worked with Dr Tatiana String and her MA students of History of Art at Bristol University to research each painting, comparing similar portraits of the period, costumes and iconography and dating the unknowns as accurately as possible. They made practical use of their skills in the National Portrait Gallery’s own remarkable Heinz Archive – a resource I have used for many decades but which is really not well enough known. The result is a fascinating exhibition of all 13 portraits (with comprehensive detailed labels) at Montecute, near Yeovil in Somerset and a book of the imagined lives by John Banville, Tracey Chevalier, Julian Fellowes, Terry Pratchett, Sarah Singleton, Joanna Trollope and Minette Walters. Since 1975 the National Trust have been collaborating successfully with the NPG to display Tudor paintings, which would otherwise languish in store, in the glorious setting of this Tudor mansion.

One especially interesting example is the portrait formerly though to be of Sir Thomas Overbury. Extensive student research now shows that both facial likeness and provenance of the painting make it more likely to represent Sir Robert Dudley, the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, the Earl of Leicester. The panel painting, which has been cut down on 3 sides, came to the NPG in 1933 from Ditchley, Oxfordshire which was part of the estate of Robert Dudley’s godfather. This portrait is the subject of Tracey Chevalier’s Rosy in which she imagines the love life of the handsome flushed young man.

The imagined lives process mirrors that of researching paintings for book covers to find a portrait from a particular historical period, preferably of an unknown sitter, which reflects and illustrates as closely as possible the description of a fictional character. Every picture tells a story one way or another.

Gertrude Prescott Nuding argues that the inspiration behind and debates over the founding of Britain’s National Portrait Gallery reveal the Victorian establishment at its most earnest about who was worth celebrating, in: Portraits for the Nation

‘I wake up late, following a long evening’s study and dash for the bus. The news on the transistor is shocking. Dozens of black people are shot by police in South Africa. At college everyone is numbed by the newspaper photos of bodies strewn across the streets. Many victims were shot in their backs as they fled the police – “Sixty-nine people dead – hundreds wounded and injured”. This is the worst incident in South Africa since apartheid was instituted in the aftermath of the Second World War. Some of us, very very angry, want to take immediate action. Our lecturer turns a blind eye. Those most determined decide to go and protest outside the South African High Commission building. Nobody has any experience of demonstrating. We think a placard is needed and agree to meet later at the venue.

We arrive mid-morning at Trafalgar Square. Other demonstrators are already gathering in front of South Africa House, which is bounded by Trafalgar Square, the Strand and Duncannon Street. The building looks empty with locked gates. We join the others, obliged by the police to walk up and down along the narrow, sloping pavement, squeezing past a bus queue. We are not allowed to stop at all. Placards arrive. We take turns in carrying them. There are a few hundred demonstrators present. It is difficult to gauge what effect we’re having on the public and the situation is surreal. Police ensure we keep moving, threatening arrest. We feel dazed as the enormity of the disaster finally sinks in. I think of the horrific newspaper images. We vent anger in bursts of periodic chanting, frustrated that the site is so constricting, that there is only an ‘empty’ building on which to focus and that we can’t stand still. “Verwoerd OUT – Verwoerd OUT”, we bellow. We get through the long day knowing that at least we won’t be shot at.

As it darkens some protesters drift away. Later in the evening, there are even fewer people about. Only Max, a friend, and I remain from college. Eventually the police stop the demonstration at the corner of Duncannon Street and prevent us from turning back down into the loop. We’re aggrieved since we’re not doing any harm and have kept moving all day to comply with the police’s instructions. “O.K. folks”, says a constable, “You’ve done enough demonstrating today – time to go home”. We protest loudly. The police are insistent and edge us away along Duncannon Street.

Max and I decide to go for a coffee. We talk about the day’s activities and what will happen next in South Africa. We’re extremely despondent. We leave. Max thinks he can catch a bus home from the stop in front of South Africa House. We can’t see any other demonstrators. We walk towards the Square, curious also to see if ‘anything’ is still happening. Before the two of us turn at the south east corner of Trafalgar Square a line of six police approach. They recognise us and question our destination and intentions. Max says he is going to the bus stop and that I am accompanying him. Suddenly, an inspector appears from around the corner behind them: “Having trouble lads? Arrest ‘em”, he shouts.

Immediately, they grab us. We go limp as we are pushed into a side doorway of the High Commission building. We are then frog-marched along the Strand to a waiting ‘Black Maria’ police van where we join others whom we recognise. Eventually we’re all taken to Bow Street police station and queue to be ‘processed’. We’re all charged with “Using Insulting Words and Behaviour”. We’re put in cells for a while and then released on police bail sporadically, until our morning appearances at court. I catch the night bus home and creep in to the flat.

I say nothing to my parents in the morning as I leave for ‘college’. At Bow Street court I’m very surprised to see my stepfather. “How did you know about this?” I ask him. “How do you think you got bail? A policeman called last night to check your address”, he retorts. There were about 20 arrests in total. Everyone is remanded on bail, Max and I for two weeks. We decide to contact the National Council for Civil Liberties. They offer to provide us with a solicitor whom we meet before the court case. His name is Clinton Davis. We follow the earlier cases avidly in the press. The police are not having much success.

We decide go to Court to see a similar case the afternoon before our hearing. The defendants are Cheddi Jagan, Chief Minister of British Guiana and another minister, on official visit to Britain. Sir Lawrence Dunne, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate is hearing their case. They are charged with the same offence as us. In summing up Sir Lawrence says to them: “Had you been charged with Obstruction you would have been technically guilty on the evidence. As you weren’t the case is dismissed.” Max and I look at each other. What are our chances now? We daren’t hope.

We appear in court the following afternoon, April 6th, and arrive in plenty of time to meet up with our solicitor. Before he arrives a police officer takes us into a room and tells us how “There is a second charge against you – Obstruction”. We are dumbstruck and extremely worried. After a hurried chat to Davis we are summoned, faced by a stern looking Sir Lawrence. About 15 of our college friends are in the packed public gallery, wearing college scarves. I am wearing a black tie in sympathy. Clinton Davis asks why the second charge has only just been made. A perfunctory reply is given. Davis decides to still proceed when asked. Charges are read out and we both plead not guilty. The prosecution opens. A young policeman who we don’t recognise takes the stand. He reads from his notebook ‘quoting’ us and claiming that we had sworn violently at the arresting officers. When Max and I hear the evidence we look at each other, jaws literally dropping. I am called into the witness box first and cross-examined. I am so incensed with disbelief that I practically spit out my denials – “No, no, no”! Max too is furious, although calmer than me. I decide that if I am found guilty I will most definitely appeal whatever happens!

In his summary our solicitor points out the irregularity of the very late second charge, which he describes as an act of police desperation. We wait and are then asked to stand. Sir Lawrence speaks slowly and deliberately as he peers over his glasses towards us. “You probably did what the police said you did”… I bridle at this… “But I can’t convict you on a probability”… He then quickly adds, “so the case is dismissed”. There is a cheer in the public gallery. Everybody is so relieved – first that we have no conviction, but principally that justice has prevailed, albeit with a face-saving gesture to the authorities. The Metropolitan Police get very few, if any, convictions in this affair, even though the ‘court’ appears to be ‘on their side’.

Our view of the police takes a bad knock. Hearing lies spoken against us on oath in court is a violent shock. However, it does not stop me from opposing apartheid, nor prevent me from eventually joining another part of the criminal justice system as a probation officer.

A few days after our court appearance, South African President Vervoerd is shot in the face. He survives the attempt on his life but is assassinated five years later, in 1966. Apartheid continues until the 1980s and 1990s. I continue to boycott South African produce until the mid-90s. Fifty years on, it still feels disloyal to drink a glass of South African wine or to consume anything with ’Outspan’ on it.

After the killing of 69 black South Africans, the world judged apartheid to be morally bankrupt. The political agitation that ensued would eventually overturn white supremacy, writes Gary Baines, in: Remembering Sharpeville

Re-opening of Jewish Museum London
The newly redeveloped Jewish Museum London in Camden opened to the public yesterday, March 17th, following its official launch by writer and broadcaster Nigella Lawson and Alan Yentob, Creative Director of the BBC and one of the museum’s patrons, the previous day. Following a £10 million redevelopment programme, partly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the museum has tripled its exhibition space. The museum tells the story of Jewish history, culture and religion through audio visual displays, hands on exhibits and personal stories brought to life through objects and photographs.
Jewish Museum London
Raymond Burton House
129-131 Albert Street
Camden Town, London NW1 7NB
www.jewishmuseum.org.uk

Uganda blaze update
We reported, yesterday, on the fire at the Kasubi tombs in Uganda, the burial site for the kings of Uganda’s Baganda tribe and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Relations between the Baganda tribe and the central government have recently become increasingly strained and protesters from the tribe have accused the government of involvement in the fire. At least three people have been killed in clashes between protesters from the Baganda ethnic group and government security forces.
The Guardian reports.

New light on concentration camps in Franco’s Spain
During and after the Spanish Civil War, there existed 132 concentration camps and 541 forced labour battalions in Spain. At the beginning of the week, hundreds of files from the camps went on display for the first time at the Historical Memory Document Centre in Salamanca. The files had been hidden in Spanish government archives until the promulgation of the Law of Historical Memory in 2007. They provide a terrifying insight into the fates of as many as 500,000 prisoners, which included Britons, French, Germans, Polish and some Jews. According to the records, when the Huelva concentration camp opened in Andalusia in February 1938 it held 3,202 prisoners; when it closed in July, there were 662 surviving prisoners.
Graham Keeley reports in The Times.

For further information on Franco’s Spain, visit our Spanish History focus page.

British plans to assassinate Mussolini
Documents recently released by the National Archives in Kew reveal British plans to assassinate Mussolini in July 1943. In a memorandum dated July 13th, 1943, Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden wrote to Churchill asking him to approve Air Marshal Arthur Harris’ plans to use the Dambusters squadron to bomb the dictator’s headquarters in central Rome.
Nick Pisa reports in The Scotsman. Nick Squires reports in The Telegraph.

The coin that celebrated Caesar’s assassination
A coin struck by Brutus in celebration of the assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15th 44BC went on display at the British Museum on Monday to mark the 2,054th anniversary of his death.
Maev Kennedy reports in The Guardian.

Results of the Saville Enquiry
Lord Saville’s enquiry into the events of January 30th, 1972, when 14 people were killed in Londonderry’s Bogside, began 12 years ago. With a total cost of almost £200 million, it has been the longest and most expensive enquiry in British legal history. Lord Saville’s report is due to be handed over to Shaun Woodward, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, next week and is expected to be made public shortly after.
David McKittrick reports in The Independent.

Kasubi royal tombs in Uganda destroyed by fire
Both Reuters and the BBC report on the fire which started yesterday evening at the Kasubi Tombs in Uganda, a UNESCO World Heritage Site which dates back to the 19th century. The site is a burial for the kings of the Baganda tribe, Uganda’s largest tribe. The tribe influenced President Yoweri Museveni’s coming to power 24 years ago; however, relations between the kingdom and the central government have recently become increasingly strained. There are rumours that the fire may have been caused by arson.

‘The Indian Portrait’ opens today, March 11th, at the National Portrait Gallery. Bringing together 60 works from international private and public collections, including the V&A, the British Library, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York, and the Institut Néerlandais in Paris, the exhibition charts the history of the Indian portrait over three centuries. The diversity of the portraits on display and the insights which they provide into the history of the Mughal Empire are fascinating.

The portraits are, first of all, hugely diverse, varying in subject matter, size, style and technique. They range from scenes of court life to individual portraits which depict Mughal emperors, courtiers and holy men, as well as women and Europeans living in India. The first Indian portraits date to the reign of the third Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605), who commissioned a series of portraits both of himself and of his courtiers. Abu’l Fazl, the historian of Akbar’s reign, recorded this innovation in Mughal court painting in his chronicle the Akbarnama: ‘portraits [surat] have been painted of all His Majesty’s servants, and a huge book [ketab] has been made’. Shah Jahan commissioned a similar ‘official manuscript’ of his reign, the Padshahnama (‘The Book of the Emperor’), which features 44 illustrations depicting events from his life. Another grandiose official portrait is the six-foot life-size image dating to 1617 of the fourth Emperor Jahangir holding a globe, which is believed to be the largest painting to come from the Mughal Empire.

However, the display also provides more intimate glimpses of the Mughal emperors, as well as moving insights into the lives of their courtiers. Alongside the stylised images of Akbar presented in the Akbarnama, for example, there is also a simple black and white ink drawing of the emperor which captures his mood and personality. Particularly sombre and moving are the drawing and accompanying finished painting of ‘Inayat Khan, one of Jahangir’s attendants, in his last days. The portrait was commissioned by Jahangir who recorded in his memoirs on October 10th, 1618, that ‘Inayat Khan ‘was addicted to opium, and when he had the chance, to drinking as well […] He appeared so low and weak that I was astonished… As it was a very extraordinary case I directed painters to take his portrait’.

The exhibition also reveals the evolution of Indian portraiture over three centuries, its richness and its complexity; it both influenced art in regions which gradually fell under Mughal control and was, in turn, influenced by European and British traditions. Art in the Deccan sultanates, which included the five Islamic kingdoms of Ahmadnagar, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur and Golconda on the Deccan Plateau in south-central India, became increasingly influenced by Mughal traditions as the region was conquered by the Mughal emperors from 1596 to 1686. The sultans increasingly commissioned portraits of themselves similar to those of the Mughal emperors. By 1614, the independent Hindu Rajput kingdoms of Rajasthan and the Hill (Pahari) region north of Delhi had also been incorporated into Mughal territory. The conquered kingdoms similarly absorbed aspects of Mughal culture, which is reflected in portraits of time such as that of Kunwar (‘prince’) Anop Singh of the principality of Devgarh in the powerful Mewar kingdom riding with a falcon.

But Indian portraiture was also influenced by British and European traditions and increasingly so in the 18th and 19th centuries as India came under British control. A portrait of Jahangir triumphing over poverty believed to date to 1625 reveals, for example, how Indian portraiture increasingly came to incorporate elements of western art: two European cherubs are placing a crown on the emperor’s head, whilst a third is handing him the arrows which he is using to kill poverty. During the British period, Indian artists were employed to produce paintings of local scenes and people and some also received patronage from employees in the East India Company. Portraits from this period include a curious and amusing depiction of William Fullerton (c.1725-1805), a surgeon with the East India Company, who is portrayed in a totally Indian way reclining against a bolster on a terrace and smoking a huqqa.

A colourful, detailed, beautiful, and at times grandiose, insight into the history of the Mughal Empire from 1560 to 1860.

The Indian Portrait 1560-1860
March 11th – June 20th
National Portrait Gallery
St Martin’s Place
London WC2h 0HE
Telephone: 0207 306 0055
www.npg.org.uk

Images:

- Page from the Padshahnama: Jahangir receives Prince Khurram at Ajmer, Mughal, attributed to ‘Abid c.1635, Royal Collection

- Drawing of Akbar, c. 1595, The British Library

- Kunwar Anop Singh of Devgarh riding with a falcon, Devgarh, Mewar, Rajasthan, attributed to Bakhta, c.1776, Museum Rietberg Zurich. Gift of Dr. Carlo Fleischmann Foundation and acquisition

- William Fullerton seated on a terrace, Patna, Bihar, by Dip Chand, Victoria and Albert Museum

For further information on the Mughal Empire, read our article The Mughal Dynasties

To read more about the history of India, visit our India focus page.