M A R G A R E T, L A D Y B R O O K E RANEE OF SARAWAK
(Photo: Susannah Roberts)
Margaret, Lady Brooke, born a subject of Queen Victoria, became herself queen at age twenty. Bestowed the title Ranee, derived from the Sanskrit word for queen, Margaret reigned over the kingdom of Sarawak as Queen Consort alongside her husband, the Rajah, for more than fifty years in the late nineteenth century. This portrait of Margaret was painted by Barbara Sotheby1 thirty years into Margaret’s reign, offering a glimpse of a bizarre and uncomfortable aspect of British imperial history. The so-called White Rajahs of Sarawak, three generations of one English family, imposed absolute rule over a kingdom on the northwest coast of Borneo from 1841. The third and last ruler, Charles Vyner Brooke, Unfortunately, little is known about Barbara Sotheby née Leighton (1870–1952), the daughter of Sir Baldwyn Leighton. A photographer and a painter, E B Sotheby is known for a portrait of Edward Burne-Jones at work. She seems to have been skilled in a variety of artistic mediums, as she also designed the Art Nouveau stained glass window of the Leighton family chapel near Shrewsbury.
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