India, Sept. 1 -- Nearly eight decades after it was painted, a portrait of Dadabhai Naoroji, the 'Grand Old Man of India', has acquired a new lease of life. The painting, which spent decades at the historic India Club in London, will be exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London from Wednesday in an exhibition titled 'Empire and Resistance' after being restored by specialists at The Courtauld Institute of Art.

The 756 x 615 x 24 mm work executed in the Western tradition of realism is an oil-on-canvas portrait by Bombay-based Sorab MF Pithawalla (1911-1959). It has been loaned to the gallery for three years, renewable, by its owner, Yadgar Marker, 75, a UK-based Parsi of Karachi origin who acquired the India Club in 1997. Its re...