Lucknow was an extraordinarily elegant and sophisticated Indo-Islamic kingdom that flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is the first exhibition devoted to the opulent art and culture of the city, which boasted the wealthiest court and most ostentatious cityscape in northern India.

The refined artistic production of the city's multiethnic residents and artists is represented by Indian courtly paintings, European oil paintings, drawings, prints, a range of decorative art objects and textiles, nineteenth-century photography, and twentieth-century Indian films. The exhibition provides a framework for understanding the history of the region and the nature of India's colonial history and memory.