The Picture Gallery is worth seeing from the outside--the view from the road is delightful. The building is a neat, well-maintained colonial structure of red brick, situated beyond a shimmering pond with clusters of pink lotuses and some artistically arranged palm trees scattered about the banks. On one side lies the distinctly colonial Clock Tower; on the other side, separated from the Picture Gallery by a curving side road, stands the aborted squat circular tower known as the Satkhanda. In the middle sits the Picture Gallery, looking deceptively inviting from the road. We, of course, fell prey to its tantalising façade and, armed with our tickets, arrived shortly before lunchtime. The shortage of visitors of any kind ought to have warned us, but we boldly went forth--into something pretty disappointing.

The Picture Gallery could have been an amazing display of Awadh’s glorious past; all it manages to be is a sadly neglected and small roomful of portraits. The portraits--oil paintings and photographs of the erstwhile nawabs of Awadh--are a mix of mediocre and impressive, and among the best are a series of full-length portraits of the most illustrious nawabs. There’s a portrait of Safdarjang (whose tomb is an architecturally undistinguished but well-known monument in Delhi); there’s one of Asaf-ud-Daulah (the generous and large-hearted builder of the Bara Imambara; it was said of him that "jisko na de Maulah, usko de Asaf-ud-Daulah"--"He to whom the Almighty does not give, on him does Asaf-ud-Daulah bestow"). There’s also a well-known portrait of the obese, luxury-loving Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, who was deposed by the English and forced to leave Awadh, and there’s one of his grandson, who (among other things) was also the sheriff of Calcutta. These huge portraits of the nawabs, executed in full, rich colour and in complete regalia--are just about the only saving grace of the Picture Gallery. Nearly all of them, by the way, are painted in such a way that some portion of the painting--the nawab’s eyes, the tip of his sword, the toe of his boot- always seem to point your way, no matter where you stand in relation to the painting. A fairly simple matter of physics, but appealing anyway!