Want to procure the paperback edition of my book? Go to Routledge's website and use the code TAOC25 to get a 25% discount. www.jenniferhowes.com/the-art-of-a...

FIRST SESSION THIS MONDAY! Join us for "At the Cusp of the Modern? Tipu Sultan, the Family & East India Company Rule", a paper by @eicathomefinn.bsky.social with comment by @jhowesuk.bsky.social All welcome in person @ihr.bsky.social & on zoom (register for link: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...)

Up-ended cannons used as ash trays, BBD Bagh, Kolkata.

I’m pleased to be taking part in the first seminar in this series, on 6 October 2015, with Margot Finn!!

Morning walk

On 6 October 2025 I’ll be the discussant for @eicathomefinn.bsky.social’s paper, “At the Cusp of the Modern? Tipu Sultan, the Family & East India Company Rule”. IHR Europe & the World Seminar, Senate House, London. Hybrid event! Details here www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Autumn vibe

Ran into Col James Skinner in the National Portrait Gallery’s “Colonial Expansion & Experience” room! He was the founder of the irregular cavalry regiment, “Skinner’s Horse”, in early 19th Century India. On permanent loan from @britishlibrary.bsky.social (F9) www.npg.org.uk/collections/...

Before the internet

'Banksy confirmed he was responsible for the work with a post on Instagram, showing the graffiti before it was covered over.'

“Calcutta Freed January 11 1757”, from Vice Admiral Charles Watson’s memorial in Westminster Abbey. I’ll be talking about this and other sculptures on a tour of East India Company monuments in Westminster Abbey & St Paul’s Cathedral, Tuesday October 7. Details here: www.bacsa.org.uk/event/westmi...

On Tuesday 7 October I’m giving a tour of East India Company monuments in Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral. Details here… www.bacsa.org.uk/event/westmi...

It's almost like young people are interested in institutions facing up to their history in a frank and nuanced way www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

Bristol's statue of Edward Colston (1636-1721), made in 1895, is on permanent display in the M Shed Museum's "Bristol People" Gallery. It's a 10 minute walk from the plinth where it stood until 2020.

In the crypt of @stpaulscathedral.bsky.social, Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859), Governor of Bombay & Historian of India, has been patiently standing in the cafeteria queue for decades.

Lovely. www.bbc.com/news/article...

This year I planted carrots for the first time. I’m baffled by the results.

Silk Road story! Was the bronze lion in Venice’s St Mark’s Square made in Tang Dynasty China? Was it possible to carry a massive chunk of metal such a vast overland distance? www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Fabulous opportunity to do a funded PhD at the University of Oslo, looking at Mughal art and material culture! www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

New Delhi’s Raj era Secretariat building will be transformed into the Yuge Yugeen Bharat (“everlasting India”) Museum. It will showcase 5,000 years of cultural heritage. India’s seat of government to become ‘world’s largest museum’ www.thetimes.com/article/d1b4...

Marble figures of Hindu deities by an artist from Jaipur. Are they avatars of Vishnu? Collected by Major General Charles “Hindoo” Stuart in the early 19th century, now in the British Museum London @britishmuseum.bsky.social

Statues of Charles Fox and William Pitt in St Stephen’s Hall, Palace of Westminster. Rivals in the 18th Century, they eternally face each other in a weird staring competition. If they came to life, they’d throw pies at each other.

Today I saw the burial place of Thomas Babington Macaulay in Westminster Abbey, & I wondered if he had the faintest idea how he’d be remembered in India.

The gold throne of Tipu Sultan, looted from Srirangapatna in 1799, is one of the design features of Hew Locke’s installation, ‘Gilt’ (2022) at Compton Verney, Warwickshire. (1/2)

Autumn schedule for @ihr.bsky.social 's British History in the Long 18th Century fortnightly seminar is now live. @long18thsem.bsky.social. Join us in person at the IHR in London or on Zoom, for Mansfield on the Chevalier d'Eon, servants' travel, rhetorics of slavery, Bengal textile workers & more.

Perfect morning! Walked my little dog in the Chiltern Hills while listening to Bobby Friction spin tunes on BBC6, then he interviewed my lovely colleague Dalbir “Tabla Jedi” Rattan. What a surprise!

The best way to contextualise this statue would be to convert the Foreign Office building (constructed in the 1860s as the India Office) into a museum of imperial/colonial history. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

My dad working on the Michael Craig-Martin jigsaw puzzle I got him @royalacademy.bsky.social

Buddhist relics from Piprahwa valued at £9.7 million returned to India. Purchased by the Arojsha Godrej Foundation for an undisclosed sum after Dr Naman Ahuja’s dedicated campaign. WC Peppe took them from India in 1898, placed on sale by his great-grandson in 2025. www.thetimes.com/article/1f95...

Coast Salish house boards decorated with carnivorous mammals c.1890. Cultural objects were “collected” in the 1950s by Canada’s Dept of Indian Affairs after decades of suppressing indigenous people & distributed to museums to “preserve” a “dying” culture. www.ictinc.ca/blog/canadas...

“Wanx’id: to hide, be hidden” by Marianne Nicolson, Kwakwaka’wakw Nation, 2010. Glass & photo print. “I thought of my family and what our experience is like to enter a museum & see ourselves reflected everywhere-and yet nowhere.” In the Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver.

Sketch of a mother monkey with her baby, Pune, June 4 1874, by Edward Lear. In a letter he wrote to his sister, Ellen Newsom. V&A, National Art Library, MSL.3/13.

“Archive of Lost Memories” by Yinka Shonibare RA. Clay replicas of Benin Bronzes and a bust wrapped in trade fabric of Harry Rawson, who led the British capture of Benin Palace, 1897. In the @royalacademy.bsky.social Summer Show 2025 (#105) until 17 August.

According to the American painter, Edwin Lord Weeks, market day at Saharanpur U.P. c.1893 looked an awful lot like an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Sketches of a masullah boat and a catamaran at Madras by Edward Lear, 29 August 1874. In a letter he wrote to his sister, Ellen Newsom, in the National Art Library, V&A.

Left: War helmet from Tipu Sultan's army, late 18th C, "presented by the Captors of Seringapatam" 1799 to the East India Co. Now in the V&A Storehouse. Right: Detail, painting of the Battle of Polilur in the Darya Daulat Bagh, Srirangapatna, showing Mysore Sultanate soldiers wearing helmets.

Bronze, ceramic and needlepoint objects in the 2025 Summer Show @royalacademyarts.bsky.social

Loot from Tipu Sultan's court, V&A East Storehouse, London. Left: Rosewater sprinkler seized from Srirangapatna in May 1799. Right: Painting in the Darya Daulat Bagh, the one remaining palace building at Srirangapatna. A reclining woman smokes a hookah. In front of her is a rosewater sprinkler.

Interior of a paper dosa purchased at Crispy Dosa (South Indian restaurant) in Milton Keynes. Yes, it was very crispy.

Saw “A London Lark Rising” by Anu Kumar, a brilliant street theatre performance about the East India Company, acted in the City of London. Women express their terror of Robert Clive; a weaver ignores the Company’s ascent; Lisa Honan stands behind a cannon & explains where St Helena is.

Me & Hanuman admiring the newly opened V&A East Storehouse, London

Look through the glass floor at the centre of the V&A East Storehouse & you’ll see the Agra Colonnade, 5 marble columns and arches inlaid with pietra dura. Made in the 1630s during the reign of Shah Jahan. Taken from Agra in 1886. More info & pics here… collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O116828...

Short Sunday evening drive to Moreton Say, where Clive of India is buried in an unmarked grave. Clive was objectively, excuse the technical historical language, a proper wrong ‘un.

In May 1799 at Fort St George, Henrietta Clive was given this jewelled tiger head. What happened next? Register for my talk, "Fort St George to Srirangapatna: Henrietta Clive's journey, 1800." Fri 20 June 2025, 7pm IST/2.30pm BST. Part of the Tamil Heritage Trust Indology Fest. bit.ly/THT_Register

The Battleship Mars, late 1820s, painted by an artist from Delhi. This painting is inside the "Tasrih al-Aqvam", a Persian manuscript commissioned by Colonel James Skinner in 1825-1830. The Mars was an important ship during the Napoleonic Wars. @britishlibrary.bsky.social Add.27255, folio 172.

Portraits of sepoys at Vellore, 1820s, by the Tamil artist Yelappa (or perhaps a pupil). In the V&A South Kensington, IS.39:7-1987. You can see the entire image here: collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O67346/...

Another fantastic review of the “Treasury of Life”Company Paintings exhibition at DAG New Delhi. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Saw “Ancient India: Living Traditions” at the British Museum for the 2nd time. Wanted to buy the entire gift shop but limited myself to merch inspired by the 2000 year old Buddhist stupa from Amaravati. Left: my new key ring & coaster. Right: A sculpture from Amaravati

DAG’s Company Painting exhibition, “A Treasury of Life”, featured in this morning’s Times! I researched & wrote on their French paintings from Pondicherry. Indian paintings reveal what bewitched British colonialists www.thetimes.com/article/be4a...

Today I sat in the garden with my little dog & read Smoke and Ashes by @amitav.bsky.social