Monumental 37ft-long Indian scroll goes on public view for the first time at Yale Center for British Art

After two years of conservation, the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, has put a 37-foot-long early 19th-century Indian work known as the “Lucknow scroll” on public view for the first time. The scroll appears in the exhibition “Painters, Ports and Profits: Artists and the East India Company, 1750–1850,” on view through 21 June, and because of its size and fragility, only half is displayed at a time and gradually unrolled during the run. Made between 1821 and 1826 from 33 joined sheets of laid paper in watercolour, gouache, and gold, it presents a sweeping view of Lucknow from across the Gomti River during the reign of Ghazi-ud-Din Haidar Shah, who declared independence from the Mughal emperor in 1819. Curators Laurel O. Peterson and Holly Shaffer note the artists and patron remain unknown, while YCBA assistant paper conservator Anita Dey describes conservation challenges stemming from pigment instability and the scroll’s complex layered construction.

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