The Clive Collection

Our family holidays are invariably hard work. No basking in the sun with a book and a Margarita, no lie-in or breakfast in bed. Our days follow a regular 9-5 kind of routine with every obscure venue of the slightest historical significance visited, studied and photographed. All our holidays have been to places steeped in history – the more ancient the better, ruins are mandatory and a skeleton or two is a bonus. I have navigated endless aisles in the Louvre, worn my shoes out in the Smithsonian, and am on first name basis with the mummies of the British museum. If you are married to a historian/archaeologist you will empathise with me.

There’s always an exception to everything, something that breaks the pattern and makes life interesting. Our recent visit to Powis Castle in Wales to see the Clive collection was one such outlier.

Powis Castle houses an impressive collection of Mughal era artefacts from India. The Clive collection (Clive’s loot to quote the well known historian William Darlymple) is a reminder of a murky period in history involving the East India Company who were masters of stealth, guile and deceit. But that is history and one shouldn’t quarrel with history.

Sadly, photography in the castle is prohibited. So, you will have to bear with my thousand words instead. The most stunning display is one of the finials detached from the throne of Tipu Sultan of Mysore – a dazzlingly well made tiger-head in solid gold studded with diamonds, rubies and emeralds. Other objects of importance are the ornately carved palanquin of Siraj ud Daulah, the last Nawab of Bengal; the elegant chintz cotton tent that Tipu Sultan used during his battles; delicately carved ivory chess pieces, almost weightless, one felt they would float away but for their encasements; and a multitude of other exquisite pieces outnumbering any collection in national museums across the subcontinent including those of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

I observed each object with an intensity I didn’t know I possessed. It was as if my own history lay bare among the ivory hilted daggers and swords, the curved gold brocaded shoes and the elaborate paintings. I was peeping into a time gone by, an epoch I had only learned about in school during dry, one-dimensional history lessons. I was unable to make sense of the affinity I felt towards the objects. It was like trying to remember the details of a vivid but elusive dream. Nevertheless, as I stood among Clive’s collection that morning, I could hear the echo of battle cries and the neigh and stomping hooves of horses.

That evening as we drove home, I concluded that one could only enjoy a visit to a museum if there is a personal connection to the objects on display. I refuse to visit another museum unless it ticks this box.