TWO SIKH SILK BATTLE-STANDARDS PUNJAB, CIRCA 1830-1840 each of crimson silk, one side with reticulated block-printed gilt floral motifs

around a central sunburst medallion, the other with scrolling flame motifs around a figure of Durga on her lion, the pistachio green borders printed with geometricised foliage, the poles with spike finials 256 cm, 101 in approximately each long (2) PROVENANCE: Lord Dalhousie (1805-1860) and by descent to the Brown Lindsays of Colstoun, East Haddington These two standards are part of the group of ten sold as lot 63 at Colstoun by Sotheby's on 21st May 1990, and had been listed by Lord Dalhousie as having been purchased from the sale of the Lahore toshkhanna (repository of articles received as presents) and described by him as [item] 25-10 silk flags. They are also said according to family tradition, to have been used at the Battle of Gujarat, on 21st February 1849, when the Sikh army was ultimately defeated, led by Lord Gough. With less than one hundred dead "the fugitive army was hotly pursued as far as the Afghan frontier by an active force of 12000 men and the conquest was completed by the occupation of Peshawar" (V.A.Smith, India in the British Period, Oxford, 1923, p.699). Following this, Lord Dalhousie felt justified in annexing Punjab, two attempts at maintaining a Sikh administration having failed, stating "there was no government in the Panjab and if I had not proclaimed a distinct policy...I should have had the country in one month in riot and utter anarchy...' (op.cit., p.700).