Representations of South Asians in Edinburgh in the 1840s

This paper traces the presence of South Asians in Edinburgh, a second city of empire, during the 1840s. It provides six paintings and photographs of identified and unidentified sitters of South Asian origin who lived for short periods of time in the city but were otherwise mostly unrecorded among a predominantly European population. The authors argue that studying Edinburgh’s artistic production can contribute to a better understanding of the diversity of the city's population in the nineteenth century.