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We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, consider supporting us as a member. Join Us LONDON — Ranjit Singh had a tough start to life.
As a child, he lost an eye to smallpox; at 10, he lost his father. But beginning at the age of 16, he would fight — and win — wars against the overwhelmingly superior forces of the Afghan Durrani Empire , which sought to take advantage of the declining Mughal Empire to conquer key areas of the Punjab region. In 1801, at age 19, he would be named Maharaja of the Sikh Empire.
Ranjit Singh: Sikh, Warrior, King at the Wallace Collection explores the empire he ruled until his death in 1839. Fittingly, given the remarkable reputation of the museum’s armory, visitors are greeted at the exhibition entrance with one of the ornately engraved watered-steel talwars that belonged to the Maharaja. Amidst a decor designed to .