The negative archive of the Lafayette Photography Studio, discovered in 1968 and now held by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, reveals a panoply of Indian rulers who made the arduous trip to the heart of the Empire and were photographed heavily bejewelled and in exotic finery--the courts of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII expected no less of them. The immaculately preserved negatives in this collection reconstruct a vanished history of opulence, grandeur ...
