Reflecting on tales from a glass room

This chapter will introduce and explore some of the conundra that face the historian, the conservator and the interpreter of the historic interior: How do interiors carry traces of their own histories; not just of their creation, but also their development, decline, and destruction? Given that historic interiors are made (and unmade) by endless processes of change, what challenges face the conservator of such rooms? And how can or should the private histories of such interiors be narrated and shared? This chapter will consider these questions by engaging with a case study. This sheesh mahal or mirrored room is found in a small rawla or manor house, the seat of the thikana or barony of Ghanerao in southern Rajasthan. While the rawla has been under construction from the late sixteenth century onwards, the sheesh mahal is thought to date from the early nineteenth century, a critical moment in the history of India, when the proudly independent Maharajahs of Rajasthan began signing treaties with the British East India Company. The story is told in the exquisite miniatures, painted on glass, that cover the walls of the sheesh mahal; and this chapter will use the evidence found within the room to attempt the first written history of the circumstances of its construction. But the sheesh mahal, like many other interiors, is made of many layers, and in places where the glass has cracked or fallen away, other, earlier decorative schemes may be discovered – some of them, intriguingly, unfinished, traced in delicate sketches painted onto the plaster. To restore the room would, of course, involve covering up or destroying these former or unrealised interiors; and this chapter will consider, then, the alternative options for the preservation of a room whose very state of decay is in itself, at the very least, an historical opportunity. And who would it be preserved for? The rawla, while still in the possession of the Thakurs, the barons of Ghanerao, is now a small hotel, and while its stories concern the religion and the politics of early nineteenth century Rajasthan, the very few people who get to see it are European hotel guests: inheritors of the very British East India Company whose machinations are depicted on the walls of the room. How, in a not just post, but de- colonial era, can such a room be made public, and what can it mean for those diverse publics? This chapter will bring together post- and de- colonial thinking, conservation theory, and a detailed account of the historiography of the sheesh mahal of Ghanerao to expose and explore problems and opportunities that face everyone responsible for the continued life of historic interiors.