A watercolour of the Delhi Durbar, 1911:  an Indian ruler presenting a sword to King George V and Queen Mary, who are dressed in regalia seated on thrones on a canopied dais (shamiana). Dignitaries are shown in attendance at either side of the dais.

In December 1911 King George V and Queen Mary were proclaimed Emperor and Empress of India at the Delhi Durbar. Although similar ceremonies had been held in honour of Victoria and Edward, the 1911 Durbar was the first at which the monarch was present. The ceremony, attended by an audience of over 50,000, was a conspicuous display of imperial authority at which Indian rulers pledged loyalty to the British Raj.  

The artist and illustrator George Percy Jacomb-Hood trained at the Slade School of Art and in Paris before becoming artist-correspondent of the Graphic. It was in this role that he accompanied several royal visits to India at the start of the century. In October 1911 he travelled as part of the Royal suite to India on HMS Medina with King George V and Queen Mary. This watercolour, worked up from sketches made during the Durbar, shows an unidentified ruler, perhaps a Rajput Maharaja, laying a sword before the enthroned Emperor and Empress.