Viewing The Last Princesses of Punjab

At Kensington Palace, The Last Princesses of Punjab brings Princess Sophia Duleep Singh into sharper focus. More than a historical footnote, the exhibition, included in standard admission to Kensington Palace and free for Historic Royal Palaces members, positions her as part of a wider story about inheritance, resistance and power. Marking the 150th anniversary of her birth, the exhibition looks at both Sophia’s activism as a suffragette and the women around her: her sisters Catherine and Bamba, her mother Bamba Muller, her grandmother Jind Kaur and Queen Victoria, asking how identity and empire shaped each of their lives in profoundly different ways.

Rarely seen objects and archival material sit alongside contemporary responses from British South Asian voices today, elevating the exhibition from a commemoration to a space for thoughtful dialogue. This show is a long overdue portrait of a family and the political forces that transformed them.