Staging Power: Visual Strategies of Kingship in the Windsor Castle ‘Ishqnama Illustrated Manuscript

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper examines the Windsor Castle ‘Ishqnama, an autobiographical account of the amorous entanglements by the last king of Awadh, Wajid ‘Ali Shah (r. 1847–56), as one of the strategies for projecting an image of an ideal masculine ruler through the control over the bodies of “his” women—the paris (fairies) in his Parikhana, an establishment of women singers and dancers, many of whom were his mut‘a wives, and the women of his zenana. The ‘Ishqnama revealed the royal harem both visually and textually. The paper contextualises this strategic revealment by a tangential viewing of the harem of the contemporary Persian ruler, Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar, who similarly revealed the women of his harem by photographing them at a critical period when his image as an ideal ruler was being eroded. Discourse surrounding Wajid Ali Shah’s association with the “fairies” was diverse, with reactions ranging from adulatory accounts, to severe criticism. The paper highlights these polemic narratives by the British on the one hand and a Persian traveller, Waqar al-Mulk Tabrizi who visited Lucknow in the 1870s on the other, to examine culturally diverse perceptions about what constituted the “right” exhibition of sexuality by a ruler and how this exhibition underlined his ability to rule.