Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 July 2025
Collections of objects of Sikh history and Sikh art exist in the hands of both private individuals and institutions. The most famous examples of private collections include those of the maharajas of Patiala and Nabha in India, the Kapany Collection and the Khanuja Family Collection in the USA (Taylor and Dhami 2017) and the Toor Collection in the United Kingdom (UK). A selection from the Khanuja family's private collection is now displayed in a dedicated gallery in the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona, USA (Taylor 2022), and, similarly, a part of the Kapany Collection is housed in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, Canada. Recently, in 2022, the Lahore Museum in Pakistan inaugurated a Sikh Gallery with objects from the time of Ranjit Singh (Ahmed 2022). The items in these collections range from handwritten and illustrated manuscripts (including of the Guru Granth Sahib), miniature paintings, sculptures, clothes, weapons, jewellery, coins, pieces of furniture—mostly associated with the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the colonial period, including paintings done or commissioned by colonial officials and early photographs of the Sikhs and their shrines (c. mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries). The Sikh Gallery at Lahore Museum, for example, displays portraits of the members of the royal family (of Ranjit Singh), administrative records of the court and even personal items like prayer beads of the maharaja. Illustrated folios of a nineteenth-century Janamsakhi are among the paintings available in the Kapany Collection. Some collections also include modern art by Sikh artists such as the UK-based Singh Twins and some of the artists whose works were discussed earlier in the book (such as Sobha Singh, Jarnail Singh, R. M. Singh and Devender Singh).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.