India associations in Scotland’s National Galleries

In 2017, the 70^th anniversary of Indian Independence provided an incentive to investigate India@NGS, and to make the first formal survey of this material. The earliest documented India@NGS acquisitions are the portrait prints given by William Fettes Douglas in 1885, and a bequest of prints from William Finlay Watson in 1886. Some gifts, like the drawing from Rev. Atkinson and the oil portrait of Sir John Malcolm, came from the family. From the late 1920s, with the exception of the War years 1942–1945, India@NGS purchases appear almost annually. Relevant acquisitions in 1950 included Mrs Macqueen Ferguson’s gift of 14 portrait prints, and 11 photographs by D. O. Hill from the Elliot Collection Bequest. Well over 30 per cent of the India@NGS material is digitised and accessible, via the NGS website. This on-going project also involves replacing old, global entries with digital records of each page in every album, dramatically increasing India@NGS statistics in the process.