SYDNEY.- The Indian Empire exhibition, shaped by a promised gift of significant works from the Portvale Collection, introduces the competing narratives that emerged following the first European encounters with India. This extensive exhibition, comprising prints, photographs, posters and textiles, includes images of the India of the European imagination together with images created under the patronage of foreigners overwhelmed by a totally different country and culture. Such images favoured portraits, depictions of the manners, customs and costumes of the Indian people, as well as topographical prints in the ‘picturesque’ style then in vogue in England. Early Europeans in India were explorers and traders lured by the wealth in spices, textiles, tea and opium. The East India Company came to dominate trade to the extent it effectively took over India after the Battle of Plaissey in 1757, and continued to maintain an army of British and Indian