Empire of Glass: F. & C. Osler in India, 1840-1930

This paper seeks to give political meaning to the consumption habits of the Maharajas during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras and to engage with the identities this kind of cosumption created in a wider discourse of empire. It will explore how the Birmingham firm of F. & C. Osler, makers of luxury glass objects, developed its market in India during the nineteenth century. It will also outline, as a case study, the firm's advent into the Rajput princely state of Mewar, through a study of the specially commissioned furniture acquired by the Maharanas of Mewar, in order to link material culture and design history in the study of political identity in a post-colonial context.