When 34 men were brought from India to form a "living display" for the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition, Queen Victoria was told they were "native artisans".
Had she known they had been taught their trades at the jail in Agra, perhaps it would have barely mattered - so intense was her fascination with India.
The full extent of that preoccupation will be laid bare tomorrow in an exhibition at the National Gallery in which a group of portraits commissioned by Victoria during the height of British imperial rule in India will be displayed in London for the first time.
The exhibition, features work by the Austrian artist Rudolf Swoboda, whom the monarch sent to India to depict local people, after he painted five of the "native artisans" brought to Britain for the 1886 exhibition.
The paintings are usually displayed at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, but will be on show at the National Gallery until January 19.
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