The Durbar

The Durbar, originally published in 1903, is one of Mortimer Menpes and Dorothy Menpes's first collaborations. Featuring 100 colour prints of Mortimer Menpes's beautiful watercolour paintings with Dorothy's transcribed anecdotes it provides an illustrated record of the commemoration in Delhi of the coronation of King Edward VII. Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1855-1938), was an Australian-born British painter, author, and illustrator. While this was going on, the passengers, with their luggage, had been arriving in streams — judges, peers, duchesses, proprietors of patent medicines, and celebrities of all kinds — one continual stream. In the midst of the arrival of Grosvenor Square, with its pomp and bustle and importance, I turned to watch a group of acrobats vainly trying to attract our attention. It was in December, early in the morning and bitterly cold ; and to see these poor little people, in their torn pink tights and their gaudy waistcoats, with the spangles wearing off, vainly trying to be funny — this was pathetic. There were children, boys and girls, none of them older than ten, springing about on their fathers' shoulders, clapping their blue chapped hands, laughing and making jokes, yet never raising a smile.