India’s present boom economy is just one period in its rich and varied history. Indian art has been collected and appreciated in this country since Britain first started trading with India in the late Renaissance.

TREASURES FROM INDIA will be our inaugural exhibition at our new gallery at 31 Dover Street, London W1S 4ND where we shall move in early November 2006. This selling exhibition consists of around 60 paintings, elements of architecture, textiles and objects of Hindu, Muslim, Jain and Sikh origin. They give a picture of the luxurious taste and lifestyle of the Indian elite during the 16th to the late 19th century.

Our Rajput miniatures revolve around the pleasures and pastimes of the Hindu rulers of Rajasthan – portraits of their favourite elephants and horses, tiger and lion hunts, palace and durbar scenes and love making.

There are also trade goods, including a mother-of- pearl casket from Gujarat and other courtly objects, such as enamelled glass, an exquisitely carved ivory fly whisk and embroidered velvets of the type that Clive of India brought back to Britain in the 1760s. There will be a small group of rare South Indian paintings made for the French and British during the 18th century and a monumental painting on cloth depicting an overview of the important Jain pilgrimage site, Shatrunjaya.