Rare portraits of royalty

Chennai

Early photographic portraits often showed rulers in complete regalia, sometimes accompanied by their children, wives or attendants. But as the society progressed and technology improved with time, the palace (including the female quarters) began to open up and experiment with various modes, poses, and forms of photography. The image of a queen or the princess in a royal household has often had a certain ethereal quality about it. And as one glances through these portraits, it is evident that many of them had their own sense of style and poise. Unpeeling several layers, the exhibition looks at these alluring figures who sported chiffon sarees and exquisite jewellery, featured in fashion magazines and were touted as icons — as voices from the past that we, have seldom paid attention to. The exhibition’s accompanying publication, also called Maharanis: Women of Royal India will also be previewed at the exhibition.

These are portraits of royal women who lived during the last phase of the erstwhile royal families in India—from around the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. This period in history coincided with the invention and rise of photography, which quickly replaced painting as the means for royals and members of high society to  record themselves, for each other and for posterity. It was also the time when court photographers were appointed. Serving as windows into a time of great political and social change, they allow us to map the transforming modalities and conditions of the princely class, and its complex relationship with colonialism and the British Empire.

The exhibition will be on display at Amethyst, Royapettah from July 30 to August 4.

Here we have chosen a few portraits of royal womend from the south Indian princely states
 
The Hyderabad royals, better known for their patronage of the photographic studio of Raja Deen Dayal, were to continue this association well after the death of both Raja Deen Dayal and the sixth Nizam, Mir Mehboob Ali Khan. A remarkable series of portraits of women of the Hyderabad zenana are preserved at the Chowmahalla Palace. Collectively called the ‘Mahallat series’ these portraits were taken between 1908 and 1915 and featured the seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali, with his wives and daughters — all posing against a painted backdrop and with several studio props placed on the lawns of the King Kothi Palace complex.

Official visits by regional governors, the Viceroy and other members of the British and other European royal families meant that their spouses frequently accompanied them and needed to be similarly entertained. Each visit was photographed extensively. While in official visit albums created after the visit, the Indian hostess was seldom seen, her presence in archives indicates that signed photographic portraits were usually exchanged as souvenirs of the visit. In 1886, the Maharani of Travancore, Lakshmi Bayi, on being awarded the Order of the Crown of India sent a photograph of herself wearing the medal to Queen Victoria.

Emily Merrick was one of many European artists who toured India during the Raj, painting royal portraits along the way. Her diary is replete with anecdotes of her encounters with royal figures who commissioned portraits from her…The widow of Vijayarama Gajapathi Raju, Maharaja of Vizianagram asked the artist to paint her ‘fair and with no wrinkles’, a difficult task given that she was advanced in years.

The various kingdoms and families in the subcontinent followed different kinds of protocol, and even the practice of purdah differed to varying degrees. This comes as no surprise when one considers that there were over five hundred princely states in Imperial India, spread out all over the subcontinent. There are exceptions, as it stands, to every rule—the state of Travancore was the only major matrilineal kingdom and had no system of purdah.