Lucy Kauser

Lucy Kauser completed her BA in History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS in 2013 and her MA in History of Art at UCL in 2014. 

She has worked in museums since 2009 including in Collections Research at the Tate 2014-15 and at the HH Maharaja Sir Jiwajirao Scindia Museum, India, 2015-18. She now works for the SOAS Gallery as a Collections Officer. Her research is on nineteenth-century architecture in South Asia, particularly the transformation of tastes and working practices in architecture and art as a result of colonialism.

Lucy’s research focuses primarily on the artistic and architectural dialogue between Europe and South Asia during the colonial period, particularly in the nineteenth and early 20th centuries. Following the increasing European presence in South Asia from the seventeenth century onwards, many Indian architects began to incorporate European architectural and visual vocabularies into their own buildings. 

By the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number of entirely Europeanised palaces, particularly in the Neoclassical form, were being commissioned by Indian patrons and built by Indian architects. This can be seen not only in grand palaces but also in smaller houses and buildings. Simultaneously, the British government in India incorporated Indian architectural features into their buildings, forming the ‘Indo-Saracenic’ style- an interesting counterpart to the Indian-built European-style buildings. 

Focusing on palaces and local architecture in Gwalior as an important case study during this moment, this project explores Gwalior as a representative of a wider trend in Indo-European architecture throughout Colonial India.