August

1809-1888

Royal Artist at the Court of Lahore

In 1840, Auguste Schoefft along with his wife arrived in Bombay and the following year reached Punjab during the reign of Maharaja Sher Singh. The court physician, Doctor Honigberger cordially invited him as honoured guest of the Maharaja. In Amritsar he was nearly caught red handed by the fanatical Akalis for smoking a cigar in public that his life was barely spared. He initially sketched Bhai Gurmukh Singh, the influential Sikh priest of Amritsar and the resemblance was so striking, Maharaja Sher Singh immediately ordered him to portray his leading chief courtiers. The painting of Maharaja Sher Singh seated grasping a sword was his best work as the Maharaja had personally agreed to sit for his own portrait between having counsel. Having sketched all the surviving leading personalities of the Sikh court during his visit to Lahore, on his return to Europe, he portrayed the entire grand durbar of Lahore on one colossal mural later exhibited at the Vienna exhibition of 1855. Declared bankrupt by 1875, he endeavoured to revive his fortunes in California in 1881, but sadly unable to revive his riches he returned to England penniless. Although he died from injuries sustained from tumbling down the stone steps of an institute, his works enthralled his contemporaries during the Vienna exhibition of 1855 where his amazing Sikh collection was displayed. Schoefft will always be symbolic with the paintings he embellished at the Lahore Durbar and his name might not be reverberated in the art world today but he has bequeathed us a lasting legacy by depicting the grandeur of the Sikh court through his mesmerising masterpiece the Court of Lahore.