Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) 9780199466849

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Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

Title Pages Priya Maholay-Jaradi

(p.i) Fashioning a National Art (p.ii) (p.iii) Fashioning a National Art

(p.iv) Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries. Published in India by Oxford University Press YMCA Library Building, 1 Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110 001, India © Oxford University Press 2016 The moral rights of the author have been asserted. First Edition published in 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

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Dedication

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

Dedication Priya Maholay-Jaradi

(p.v) To my physiotherapist mother Dr Jyotsna Thaker-Maholay and engineer father Shivkumar Maholay, who lent unstinting support in my journey to be an art historian (p.vi)

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List of Photographs

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.xi) List of Photographs Priya Maholay-Jaradi

I.1 Throne of Frost by Anju Dodiya (2007), installation at the Durbar Hall, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, Baroda, 28 double-panelled paintings with mirror shards, 25 × 60 feet. Photograph: Pablo Bartholomew. xxix 1.1 Map of Baroda (1904), data as of 1900–3, report of famine operations in Baroda State, Bombay: Times of India Press. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 6 1.2 Sayajirao Gaekwad III’s coronation (1881). Sayajirao (top picture, first row, seated fourth from the left). T. Madhavarao (second picture, first row, seated fourth from the right; top picture, second row, standing fourth from the right), F.A.H. Elliot (top picture, first row, seated fourth from the right), and other mentors and officials. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 13 1.3 Nazarbag Palace, Album no. 22: Views of Baroda, page 23. Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Archives. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 15 (p.xii) 1.4 Makarpura Palace, Album no. 22: Views of Baroda, page 8. Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Archives. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 15 1.5 The official coronation jewellery and turban of Sayajirao Gaekwad III, painted by E.F. Sass Brunner (1939), oil on canvas.

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List of Photographs Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 17 1.6 Pageantry items: carriages, bullock carts, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 18 1.7 Elephant with howdah in procession, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 19 1.8 The Gold Gun, Album no. 22: Views of Baroda, page 34. Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Archives. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 20 1.9 Lakshmi Vilas Palace (north-west view), from the album SouvenirGlimpses of Baroda, gelatin silver print (matt and brown toned), 250 × 348 mm, c. 1940s. ACP: D2008.07.0013(04). Courtesy of the Alkazi Collection of Photography. 25 1.10 Dressing Room, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photographs: Manish Chauhan. 28 1.11 Two views of Drawing Room, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photographs: Manish Chauhan. 29 1.12 Red Reception Room, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 30 (p.xiii) 1.13 Billiards Room, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan 30 1.14 A lunch at the Durbar Hall, bromide painting, Maganlal & Sons, Baroda. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 32 1.15 The Durbar Hall, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 33 2.1 The cover and title pages of Scenery, Costumes, and Architecture Chiefly on the Western Side of India by Captain Robert Melville Grindlay (1826), London: R. Ackermann/Smith, Elder & Co. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photographs: Manish Chauhan. 65

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List of Photographs 2.2 Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, painted by Valentine Cameron Prinsep (1877), oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 71 2.3 Pilajirao Gaekwad (r. 1721–32), painted by an unknown artist in the early nineteenth century, gouache on paper, 49.0 × 41.0 cm. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: PG/5B/94. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 76 2.4 Portrait of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad II (r. 1800–47), painted by an unknown artist in the nineteenth century, oil on canvas. (p.xiv) Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 77 2.5 An Indian artist working on a European portrait, painted on mica by an unknown artist, c. 1875. Courtesy of Mildred and W.G. Archer, Indian Painting for the British, 1770–1880 (1955), Oxford: Oxford University Press. 79 2.6 Kashirao Gaekwad (1832–1877), painted by MCT Naidu/Tiroovengada Naidu (1884), oil on canvas. Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 83 2.7 Benjamin Constant’s Judith in one of the royal palaces, Baroda. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 95 2.8 Benjamin Constant’s Judith, oil on canvas. Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 96 2.9 Gujarati Dancing Girl, painted by Augusto Felici, c. 1893–7, oil on canvas. Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 105 2.10 Portico of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, marble relief by Augusto Felici, c. 1893–7. Courtesy of H.H. Maharaja Samarjitsinh Gaekwad. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 106 2.11 Cheetah Tamer sculpted in bronze by Augusto Felici, c. 1893–7. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: MIP. 37/P.G.2.27/A.5.2. Page 3 of 6

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List of Photographs Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 107 2.12 A Lady with a Water Pot sculpted in bronze by Augusto Felici, c. 1893–7. (p.xv) Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: PG 2.22. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 108 2.13 Portico of the main entrance to the Lakshmi Vilas. The picture shows Augusto Felici’s reliefs Tanjore Dancing Girl, Fakir, and Cheetah Tamer as well as the green marble and table seen by Edward Weeden in 1911. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 109 2.14 Kalaghoda/Sayajirao’s equestrian statue sculpted in bronze by Derwent Wood (1907). Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 111 2.15 The plaque below Kalaghoda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 111 2.16 Head study for Kalaghoda sculpted in bronze by Derwent Wood, c. 1907. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession Number: EP 222 (P.G. 2.10). Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 112 2.17 Brave Hunting Boy of Dhari, Amreli sculpted in bronze by V.P. Karmarkar and G.K. Mhatre. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 114 2.18 Woman with a Pitcher sculpted in bronze by Fanindranath N. Bose. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: PG 2.21 (MIP-49). Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 116 (p.xvi) 3.1 Ivory model of an elephant with howdah by an unknown artist (purported to be Neelakandan Asari). Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Accession number: A.17.144. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 135 3.2 Kalabhavan, Album no. 22: Views of Baroda, page 15. Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Archives. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 148 3.3 Colour plate for the Baroda Screen by Gujarat carvers, Wimbridge (East India Art Manufacturing Company), J.J. Griffiths (Bombay School of Page 4 of 6

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List of Photographs Art), and Playford Reynolds (chief engineer of Baroda State), c. 1886, published in B.A. Gupte (1886), ‘The Baroda Court’, The Journal of Indian Art and Industry, I, Plate 2/Image 2 after p. 132. Courtesy of NCAA, Lahore. 172 3.4 Colour plate for the Pigeon House by Keshav Mistry, c. 1886, published in B.A. Gupte (1886), ‘The Baroda Court’, The Journal of Indian Art and Industry, I, Plate 3/Image 3 after p. 132. Courtesy of NCAA, Lahore. 175 4.1 Sayajirao Gaekwad III embossed by an unknown artist at Kalabhavan in brass plaque (1906). Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: A.8.188. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 210 4.2 Sayajirao Gaekwad III sculpted in marble by Shivalal Ugarchand at Kalabhavan. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: Ch-5 P.G.2.33. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 211 4.3 The silver model of an elephant fully caparisoned for Dussehra procession with gilt howdah by an unknown artist. (p.xvii) Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: A.3.45. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 212 4.4 Preparation for a sati practice (the immolation of a Hindu widow) painted by Robert M. Grindlay, c. 1806 AD, engraved by R.G. Reeves, and etched by J. Willis and H. Melville. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 214 4.5 A view of the Vishwamitri river bridge, Baroda, painted by Robert M. Grindlay, c. 1806 AD, engraved by C. Bentley, and etched by J. Willis and H. Melville. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 215 4.6 A view of the bridge on the Vishwamitri river. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 215

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List of Photographs 4.7 Colour plates for Baroda court at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition (1886), published in B.A. Gupte (1886), ‘The Baroda Court’, The Journal of Indian Art and Industry, I, pp. 82, 126–33. Courtesy of NCAA, Lahore. 218–19 4.8 Untitled room, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 225 4.9 Sitting Room, First Floor, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 225 4.10 Bedroom, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 226 (p.xviii) 4.11 Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 226 4.12 Sandalwood box panelled with ivory plaques (Durga fighting the demons) and mosaic by an unknown artist from Billimora. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: A.15.1. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 231 4.13 Sampatrao Gaekwad sculpted in marble by an unknown artist in Florence. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: CH 166. Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 232 C.1 Throne of Frost by Anju Dodiya (2007), installation at the Durbar Hall, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, Baroda, 28 double-panelled paintings with mirror shards, 25 × 60 feet. Photograph: Pablo Bartholomew. 254

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Acknowledgements

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.xix) Acknowledgements Priya Maholay-Jaradi

This book, which began as a doctoral thesis, has seen the engagement of several teachers, scholars, friends, and colleagues throughout its making. While it is not possible to thank them all, I will mention those who have been most closely associated with my research. My profound sense of gratitude is due to Gyanesh Kudaisya for showing interest in my proposal on collection studies. His guidance towards refining my area of research and archival work has been valuable. Without the National University of Singapore (NUS) scholarship, I would not have been able to undertake this study; I thank the NUS for facilitating the funds to support my candidature. Andrea Pinkney has been more than a supervisor; she occupies a special place as a friend and confidante. I especially appreciate the many ways in which she instilled confidence and cheer in arduous times. Thank you for grooming this project with carefully devised reading lists, discussions, fieldwork strategies, and advice on writing and presentation. Maurizio Peleggi’s trenchant comments always compelled me to scale new heights. Frederick Asher’s detailed and careful feedback opened new directions for argument. I thank all my three mentors for their close and collective involvement in the making of this book. I appreciate Rahul Mukherji’s advice at various stages of my research. Thank you, Vineeta Sinha, Yong Mun Cheong, Indivar Kamtekar, Ishtiyaq Ahmed, and Rajesh Rai for your thoughtful comments on the proposed research topic. (p.xx) Thank you, Nur Sham, Nur Jannah, and Hamidah for managing my candidature at the NUS. Without your impeccable standards in administering every detail underlying this project, the research may not have seen a smooth completion. I

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Acknowledgements take this opportunity to express my thanks to the NUS library staff, especially Kannagi Rajamanickam and Vimala Nambiar. I am deeply indebted to my colleague and friend Hussain Ahmad Khan for his close engagement with the research. Thank you for your constant motivation and incisive feedback. My appreciation is due to my dear friend Mokshika Gaur for being an effective motivator and adviser. Thank you, Sujoy Dutta, Taberez Neyazi, Farzana Kazi, Shin Sojin, Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, and Himanshu Jha. The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden, deserves a special mention for making the resources available for beginning the manuscript. Thank you, Philippe Peycam and Willem Vogelsang. Several scholars at the IIAS became key discussants and enriched this work: Ronki Ram, Christina Firpo, Ajay Katuri, Mona Iyer, Anil Roy, Tom Hoogervorst, Florinda De Simini, and Saraju Rath. My profound thanks are due to members of the Gaekwad family in Baroda for their enthusiasm and support. The kind consent of H.H. Rajmata Shubhanginiraje Gaekwad, the chairperson of the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Trust; H.H. Maharani Radhikaraje Gaekwad; and H.H. Maharaja Samarjitsinh Gaekwad facilitated several photography schedules for this book. Curator Manda Hingurao and archivists Sudeep Das and Shruti Gautam of the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum aided picture sourcing and photography with remarkable efficiency. My photographers Manish Chauhan and Brijesh Upadhyay have made several artefacts and archival pages come alive in this book. I express my gratitude to R.D. Parmar, the former director of the Baroda Museum, for his able guidance during my field research. My thanks to Curator Vijaykumar M. Patel , Senior Chemist Yagnesh G. Dave, Gallery Assistant Rajendra Dindorkar, Taxidermist Jay D. Shukla, and the former liaison officer Shailesh Ghoda of the Baroda State Museum & Picture Gallery. The staff and management of the Gujarat State Archives, Southern Circle, Vadodara, lent formidable support in accessing files and data. I especially acknowledge Chhaganbhai Solanki’s time and effort in guiding (p.xxi) my archival research. Thank you, Ramsinghbhai and Manubhai, for making the files available from the store. Thank you, H.G. Rathava, Sadik Patel, G.J. Parmar, R.M. Rathava, Y.P. Narsinghji, K.P. Barot, M.K. Chauhan, K.P. Baria, C.N. Chauhan, and M.K. Parmar. The cooperation of Murtaza Jafri and Rao Dilshad Ali at the National College of Arts Archives, Lahore; Rahaab Allana of the Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi; Michaela Lerch of the Baccarat Heritage Collection, Paris; and the staff at the Mandvi Central Library, Baroda, led to fresh picture research to support my writing.

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Acknowledgements This project enjoyed mentoring and support from the following colleagues and friends from the art and academic fields: Kavita Singh, Saranindranath Tagore, Rashmi Poddar, Menaka Kumari Shah, Amin Jaffer, Priya Kapoor, Duncan Campbell, Anju Dodiya, Pheroza Godrej, Saryu Doshi, Sugata Ray, Khorshed, Shireen, and Kekoo Gandhy, Punita Thakkar, Sam N.J. Maneckshaw, Savithri Preetha Nair, Shonaleeka Kaul, Praveen Vijayakumar, and Bruce Rene. I especially thank Giles Tillotson and Vibhuti Sachdev for their invaluable advice on the chosen topic. Thanks are due to Bhanu Ranjan, Manee Bahl, Priyanka Mittal, and Poonam Chawla. My profound sense of appreciation is due to Devika Shankar for her prompt and effective assistance with data collection at the National Archives of India, New Delhi. I dedicate a very special acknowledgement to the architect Sharat Sunder Rajeev and the historian R.P. Raja for sharing their research with me. I deeply appreciate the support and infrastructure offered by my extended family in Baroda, Bombay, and Singapore: Neelam and Girish Thaker, Hema and Brijesh Upadhyay, and Nipa and Amit Upadhyay. Without the unstinting support of my immediate family, I might not have completed this project; my parents and my siblings and their families deserve a special mention: Jyotsna and Shivkumar Maholay, Archana and Niraj Maholay, and Ratna and Subhash Thakur. I fondly remember the late Guru Shri Mani for instilling a profound love for the arts in me. Thank you to my dear friends Bindi Shah-Mahesh and Wrik Basu for always being there, and to Tanya Balsara for being a lifelong source of inspiration. My sincere appreciation to my very efficient helpers and nannies: Mallika Chandra and Rajwinder Kaur Gill. (p.xxii) My final thanks are reserved for Manish. Thank you for believing in me and encouraging me to undertake this project. You have indeed been a wonderful father and patient partner over these busy years. Kabir and Tansen, thank you for being a part of my numerous field trips and photography schedules and for supporting the making of this lengthy ‘storybook’.

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Acronyms

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.xxiii) Acronyms Priya Maholay-Jaradi

ARI Associate of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours AWCC Ahmedabad Wood Carving Company BoT Board of Trade DPA Department of Practical Art DSA Department of Science and Arts JIAI The Journal of Indian Art and Industry PRI President of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours PWD Public Works Department RI Member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours VJTI Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (p.xxiv)

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List of Transliterations

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.xxv) List of Transliterations Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Abhinayadarpaṇam āhārya abhinaya bazār Bhārati cāri Chitralakshaṇa durbār Dussehrā farmān howḍāh huẓūr Jāverkhānā Kalābhavan Kansārā Kamāṭibāg khāṇgi lakshaṇa Lakshmi Vilās Page 1 of 3

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List of Transliterations loṭā Mahābhārata Mahā Vajra Bhairav Tantra Makarpurā Motibāg Nāṭyashāstra nāyika Naẓarbāg Naẓarpaga paṭola prabāsi purāṇic Rāmāyaṇa sādhana sanāḍ Sānkheḍa Sarkārwāḍā savāri shikār damṇi subhā Suthār sringāra swāmī swāri thāli upādhyāya vidyādhikāri wāḍā ẓamindār ẓenāna (p.xxvi) Page 2 of 3

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List of Transliterations

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.xxvii) Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction Priya Maholay-Jaradi

This introduction outlines select internationally renowned art and craft genres and practitioners from Baroda’s colonial, modern, and contemporary time periods to make a case for a common, shared agency that may have facilitated their promotion. Considered a forward-thinking and nationally committed representative at colonial exhibitions, the head of state and royal collector Sayajirao Gaekwad III (r. 1875–1939) secured Baroda’s profile as a centre for the arts and crafts. Unlike many other publications on related themes, I have tried to elucidate the place of rare archival data, fresh methodological directions, interdisciplinary theoretical frames, and key empirical themes employed in this book. Together they allow us to anticipate how archival records from 1877 show the extension of ideas from the maharaja’s private domain to the commercial and institutional realms within Baroda, India, and Euro-America in a bid to articulate themes of alternative modernity, cosmopolitanism, and nationalism and their shared provenance in Baroda’s royal collecting practice and participation at exhibitions. The book opens with examples of art projects and genres from three domains: modern Indian art, indigenous crafts, and contemporary Indian art. In 1993, the art restorer Rupika Chawla and the artist A. Ramachandran curated a seminal exhibition of Raja Ravi Varma’s works at the National Museum in New Delhi. With this landmark show, the museum revised its policy of hitherto showing pre-1857 artworks to include Varma’s works, painted between the 1870s and 1906, as part of India’s ‘national’ heritage (p.xxviii) (Sharma and Chawla in Sharma 1993: 10). A decade later, in 2003, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Bombay hosted an exhibition that showed 31 paintings by Varma from the Page 1 of 16

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction private collection of the royal family of Baroda, the Gaekwads. Likewise, in the domain of traditional crafts, Baroda gains prominence through two of its most widely merchandised genres: the Patan patola and Sankheda lacquerware, which were mostly furniture. Efforts by the government of India to promote its handicrafts and artisans from the 1940s unfolded in numerous public- and private-sector enterprises. Projects such as the Industrial Cottage Extension (an enterprise of the Gujarat government), Gurjari (also a state undertaking), and the Central Cottage Industries Emporium in Delhi1 (which represents ‘state’ or ‘national’ crafts and master craftsmen) include Sankheda lacquerware in their inventories and emporia. Sankheda furniture and the Sankheda baby cradle, which gained attention at the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition, London, and the 1902–3 Delhi Durbar Exhibition, have especially been visible in Indian and international markets. These genres have become markers of ‘Gujarati’ culture in residential spaces in India and overseas. The Patan patola, which is an integral part of the Gujarati bridal trousseau, increasingly enjoys a pan-Indian presence in bridal and other wardrobes. It has made several appearances at international bridal fairs and fashion shows to revive and represent indigenous weaves. One of South Asia’s leading designers, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, courted the Patan patola for the closing collection of India’s premier fashion show, Lakme India Fashion Week, in 2008, and the subsequent collections in 2009 and 2011.2 Since then patola has become a much-sought-after weave for young designers. The year 2009 saw a dedicated show for Patan patolas in Gujarat’s commercial and cultural capital, Ahmedabad.3 The last example draws on the domain of Indian contemporary art: the exhibition Throne of Frost that engaged one of India’s senior artists, Anju Dodiya, in 2007 (Dodiya, Adajania, and Dwivedi 2007). This exhibition was organized at the Durbar Hall of the royal palace Lakshmi Vilas, the residence of the Gaekwad family of Baroda. This contemporary art project established the palace, its decor, and collection as a catalyst: it positioned the palace as an eclectic and opulent space that inspired the artist and lent itself to her multimedia installation. This site-specific installation consisted of 38-feet tall panels with watercolour and charcoal paintings on one side (p.xxix) and embroidered fabric on the other. Arranged in a square, the panels looked down at shards of mirror strewn across the floor on the inside. These shards not only reflected Dodiya’s works, but also the architecture, furnishings, woodwork, stained glass, and artworks of the Durbar Hall, making it a part of the visual imagery of the installation. Dodiya’s installation, displayed within a few metres of Varma’s paintings, tells us that the artistic eclecticism of the Lakshmi Vilas inspired her creation4 as much as Varma enjoyed it (Varma 1896: 29–30; Varma 1895–1906: 2).

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction (p.xxx) The common denominator in these examples is that the artworks, genres, or artists qualify as ‘national treasures’ or ‘practitioners of national repute’ or ‘national representative types’, as in the case of Sankheda and patola, and that they affiliate with the royal Gaekwad family, with Baroda, and/or the Lakshmi Vilas Palace. Simultaneously, this group of works brings to the fore a lacunal question: despite their shared provenance, do these three examples remain independent and disjointed in the art and cultural domain? To put it differently, is there an alternative agency to link these genres, artists, and their association with Baroda, and their subsequent qualification as national arts and crafts more actively? The answer lies in the figure of the patron Sayajirao

Figure I.1 Throne of Frost by Anju Dodiya (2007), installation at the Durbar Hall, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, Baroda, 28 doublepanelled paintings with mirror shards, 25

× 60 feet. Gaekwad III, the maharaja of Photograph: Pablo Bartholomew. the erstwhile princely state of Baroda, in whose reign Ravi Varma, Sankheda lacquerware, and the Patan patola debuted on the national and international trail of exhibitions. It was during the same period that Dodiya’s exhibition venue, the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, was built as a royal residence and a space for art patronage. While art commissions at the Lakshmi Vilas established Sayajirao as a collector, he also extended ideas and projects from the palace to Baroda’s traditional crafts and institutional projects. For instance, Sayajirao engaged with artists such as Varma to formulate a modern Indian style of painting as part of his private collecting activity and displayed the works publicly; all the same, he embarked on the relocation of traditional crafts such as Sankheda lacquerware to polytechnics in order to introduce new methods of production. Additionally, as a royal collector and head of Baroda State, Sayajirao entrenched himself as a lender of Baroda’s arts and crafts to colonial exhibitions. Over the years, some of these loans qualified as genres of national and international distinction. This Page 3 of 16

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction brief yet interesting historical premise, which bears contemporary relevance, sets the stage to position Sayajirao as the protagonist of this book and qualify his private consumption in the Lakshmi Vilas Palace as the central theme. To summarize, this book brings to the fore Sayajirao Gaekwad’s shared role as royal collector and head of state, which demonstrates a distinct consolidation of his private collecting practice, institutional projects, and indigenous craft industries in the making of a representative Baroda category of art. This pool of Baroda arts and crafts is at once locally relevant and internationally competent. Regular display at colonial exhibitions lends value and recognition to this local body of art, which in turn accretes (p.xxxi) and integrates with the making of a new national art. Neither entirely colonial nor unrelentingly national, the new art paradigm is exemplary for affiliating with Baroda, India, and Euro-America; it manages to create a locally relevant modernity and participate in the space of Western/European modernity. It thus emerges as an alternative to modern art experiments that drew on Europe as well as to nationalistic art that grounded itself solely in Indian/Asian traditions. Instead, the Baroda paradigm serves as an early example of a highly inclusive experiment: one that drew on a royal collection, artisanal crafts, and Euro-American modes of production. This inclusive and experimental blueprint would resonate in the postcolonial formulation of syllabi, archives, art pedagogy, and art practice at the future Maharaja Sayajirao University, thereby making the university and the city of Baroda a sought-after destination for art education in independent India.5 Sayajirao and Baroda State have mostly been anchored in ideas of nationalism and modernization. With the exception of Philip Sergeant (1928: 91–3, 107, 131) who profiles the maharaja as a modern nationalist, by conflating Sayajirao’s administrative reform and modernization in the context of his nation-building project, all other biographies make a dichotomous presentation of the two ideas. These narratives further emphasize what is perceived as an inherently oblique relationship: that is, a national project is not seen in tandem with modernization for the latter is considered a European and hence colonial phenomenon. Most often Sayajirao is cast in a royalist discourse, which identifies him as a progressive head of a rapidly modernizing princely state in colonial India (Chavda 1972; Rice 1931). Alternatively, he is profiled as a moderate or radical nationalist (Gaekwad 1989: x, 183, 188, 207, 238; Kooiman 2002: 19, 113, 115). Sergeant’s biography was written with Sayajirao’s help, thereby hinting at the maharaja’s own interest in playing both roles in convergence (Codell and Macleod 1998: 20). Thus, this book sets out to break the dichotomy and present a very textured and unified reading of the prince’s ideas and projects in the domain of the arts. Sayajirao’s eminence in the arena of modernization associated with art is established through his patronage of a variety of institutions such as the polytechnic Kalabhavan and its usage to advance industry (Mehta 1992: 146–7, Page 4 of 16

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction 157, 161–5), as well as the Baroda Museum & Picture Gallery (p.xxxii) and its special installations and acquisitions (Codell 2003: 127, 129; Mehta 1995: 1–3). Some works point towards the private collector’s status as a donor to the museum (Baroda Administration Report 1920–21: 305–6; Dutt 1907: 171; Mehta 1995: 20, 22, 33–4) and not only reveal his strength but also expose how Baroda’s private collection and its links with institutional projects remain an understudied area. In addition to art patronage, Baroda and Sayajirao are discussed in the sphere of architectural patronage with regard to the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, viewed as one of the most flamboyant examples of Indo-Saracenic architecture (Gaekwad 1980: 15, 156–7; Maholay-Jaradi 2015; Michell 1994: 200, 218, 220; Tillotson 1989: 50–4). It is in this context of the palace and its architecture, as a site of patronage and consumption, that the ideas of dual identity, lifestyle, and culture are advanced, not so much to underline their dichotomies as to endorse dual affiliation as a way of life in colonial India. Gulammohammed Sheikh (1997: 20) comments on Sayajirao’s willingness and ability to mediate European and indigenous traditions to initiate a cross-cultural dialogue, an idea that undergirds this book to demonstrate the maharaja’s acceptance of European artistic genres alongside indigenous practices. The book thus begins by placing the Euro-modern alongside the native and national, as would have been the case when Sayajirao possibly briefed Sergeant for his biography. Despite these well-illuminated trajectories that discuss Baroda and its royalty, a recent work by Julie Codell creates an unsurpassed theoretical framework to discern the maharaja’s and Baroda’s positions in the wider context of modernization and nationalism. Codell’s (1998) reading of Sayajirao’s commissioned biographies concludes that the ruler presented himself in variegated profiles, which ranged from a modern anglicized prince to a nationalist, to suit his diverse audiences. He took definite cues from British institutions but reproduced them in a distinctly localized mode in Baroda, a view convincingly presented in Manu Bhagavan’s (2002) examination of Sayajirao’s education and university projects (Codell 1998: 17, 32). Codell (1998: 26) extends Sayajirao’s understanding of progress as securing autonomy in areas of industry and defence, which in turn position him as a nationalist. She thus conflates Sayajirao’s various profiles in a single person. More importantly, Codell (1998: 17, 32–3) opens a dialogue with Edward Said’s (1991 [1978]) landmark study of Orientalism (p.xxxiii) to amplify its insights: she demonstrates, much like Bhagavan (2001), how the native agent’s localized replication of British institutions partializes and even subverts the original frame of reference. Codell and Bhagavan’s revelation of native agency and the theme of localization converge with Sheikh’s comments on a cross-cultural dialogue, and together they form the thrust of this study.

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction While each chapter in the book demonstrates a detailed application of theoretical ideas, this chapter is a prefatory discussion of the overall theoretical framework that anchors the archival data and empirical finds. At the first level, the book engages with Codell’s (1998: 27, 32–3) idea of the availability of the colonial discourse of orientalism to the native agent. This discourse is made available to the native collector Sayajirao in the form of art practices, art schools, and exhibitions. He participates at the sites of art production, art and industrial schools, and colonial exhibitions and reinscribes them with his own ideas and indigenous practices. As a result, the native agent undertakes two primary exercises that form the central theme of Gyan Prakash’s (1999: 6, 8, 11, 178–9) and Partha Chatterjee’s (1986: 42) writings: first, under the mentorship of the pro-British dewan T. Madhavarao, Sayajirao accepts colonial institutions or post-Enlightenment ideas that are perceived to be scientific and modern; and second, he systematically localizes them to serve national agendas. However, over time several projects disprove the colonial import of Sayajirao’s projects and instead show a direct sourcing of ideas and systems from Europe and America, thus moving beyond Prakash’s model. While widening their frames of reference, Baroda’s new localized projects mark a simultaneous contribution to the larger European modern. Thus, the state’s alternative experiments in art, craft, and even design are not necessarily locale-bound and often constitute the European modern, as one will say after Rebecca Brown, Dipesh Chakrabarty, and Timothy Mitchell.6 Thus, the maharaja’s engagement with European artists, academic-style portraits, and machines for craft production evince his acceptance of scientific and progressive ideas; his simultaneous inclusion of indigenous artists, artisans, and native ideas, methods, and materials situate his model of patronage locally; and the export of these new homegrown genres to the international domains of sales and exhibition essay his contributions to metropolitan modernity. (p.xxxiv) Sayajirao’s large-scale art commissions and institutional craft projects are located in Prakash’s and Chatterjee’s theoretical crucibles. However, the maharaja’s practices of private royal consumption are viewed through Maurizio Peleggi’s formulation: Peleggi (2002: 4, 11–13, 24, 59–63, 66–7) explains the Siamese monarchy’s projection of a modern image through the consumption of Euro-modern objects and practices to belong to a cosmopolitan and elite international community. He also supports the localization of these Euro-modern lifestyle accoutrements through distinct modes of display and consumption (Peleggi 2002: 11–13, 24, 59–63, 66–7). Following from there, modernity is presented in this book as a continuum that displays different stages of growth, affiliations and de-affiliations, derivations and reformulations, as also rendered in the story of princely Mysore’s modernization by Janaki Nair.7 In the case of Baroda, modernization begins in the private chambers of the Lakshmi Vilas as a form of naive westernization and a desire to belong to a similar westernized fraternity of cosmopolitan elites and then charts its journey into more mature Page 6 of 16

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction phases, by taking under its wing vernacular traditions and contemporary experiments. Within this larger plot of the acceptance of colonial–modern institutions and its specific context of courting European art genres, smaller, particular contexts, which inform Sayajirao and groom his gaze, are also located. This exercise draws on Carol Breckenridge’s (1989: 212–13) idea of the refinement of the collector’s gaze against the proliferation of colonial institutions, especially exhibitions. The identification of these grooming grounds (read: art schools, exhibitions, and catalogues) simultaneously reveals the life stories of the European genres that traverse through them and consequently acquire value, so as to be courted by the collector. Arjun Appadurai (1986: 5) advocates the theory of the social life or biographical journey of ‘things’, which cannot be set into motion without the ‘human agent’. The idea of the human agent brings into play Sayajirao’s agency to demonstrate the reconfiguration of European painting and sculpture in Chapter 2. In addition to the localization of European arts, EuroAmerican institutions, chiefly polytechnics and workshops, are also adapted to Baroda’s craft industries, which in turn lend form and design to European industry as explored in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 tells the story of how colonial exhibitions display locally bred arts and crafts on the native collector’s own terms. (p.xxxv) Adaptation and localization are presented as fine gradations of the collector’s experiments in a continuum, which begins with the enchantment of Western genres and progresses to their naive emulation, followed by their gradual localization, hybridization, and, finally, critically informed reconfigurations. Homi Bhabha’s (1994: 1–4, 85–92) seminal work shapes one’s reading of these reconfigurations as neither being interested in uncritical mimicry of Western practices nor replicating their sameness, but instead as furthering collaborations, negotiations, and transformations. One views these reconfigurations through the lens of ‘dual critical engagement’ presented by K.N. Panikkar (2007: 12) in the context of the Bengal Renaissance; that is, these experiments accept Western scientific techniques of production and simultaneously invoke traditional materials, practitioners, and compositional themes to be recast in alternative formulations. Panikkar’s phrase ‘dual critical engagement’ (emphasis mine) already takes us a step further from the many dual affiliations at the Lakshmi Vilas, which had begun as a way of life, albeit without a critical perspective. According to Susan Pearce’s (1994: 157–9) and Walter Durost’s (1932: 11, 43) theoretical position, when objects link with definite ideas, their acquisition and consumption qualify as collecting. Thus, Codell’s native agent emerges as a critically informed collector who aspires to link his practice with the ideas of a modern and national art. Thus far, the discourse of orientalism is available to the native collector in the form of European art practices and art schools. Now this discourse and its essentializing

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction thrust become available to the maharaja through the space of colonial exhibitions. The aim of these colonial displays is to formulate knowledge about the empire and its colonies’ resources, and represent and validate both the knowledge and the resources through systematic classification. Nicholas Dirks’s (Dirks in Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993: 281–2, 292–9), Bernard Cohn’s (1996: 81– 7, 95–6), and Tapati Guha-Thakurta’s (2004: 85–108, 111–12) position that demonstrates the native agent’s presence in the colonial establishment’s knowledge-creation project, in turn positions Sayajirao and his personnel in the identification and knowledge-making of the local Baroda arts and crafts in Chapter 4. Furthermore, Breckenridge’s idea of forging national identities within the binaries of exhibitions is employed to demonstrate how the binary-led categories of the European and native arts actually accorded a native and hence national identity to (p.xxxvi) several arts and crafts from Baroda State. This underlines the native collector’s creative usage of the exhibitions’ apparatus to his own advantage and once again underscores the reinscription of this colonial institution. Returning to Codell’s (1998: 5–6) interpretation of Sayajirao’s multiple personae and their application to the art domain, what seems to be missing in the important themes that animate his agencies as a consumer, patron, nationalist, and modernizer, is a link to weave his various roles in a shared context that might additionally also recast the historical actor in a new mould and position his state beyond the known parameters. I see Sayajirao’s collecting practice as this link that identifies, activates, and conflates all of the aforementioned profiles in the role of a ‘collector’. This linkage occurs primarily through the extension of ideas and practices from Sayajirao’s private chambers of consumption to institutional and statewide modernization plans. Thus, much as Sayajirao’s collecting practice facilitates a link between his roles as princely collector and head of state, it also unravels him in a hitherto scarcely documented role: that of a lender to regional and international exhibitions. This role immediately positions Sayajirao as a collector in the global arena, consequently recasting his projects of collecting, consumption, modernization, and nation-building on a global playfield. Having set out the theoretical stage for this book, it is evident that this arthistorical enquiry treats collecting as an important theme and framing device. Standard readers of collection studies theorize the discipline by alluding to European and American case studies: Elsner and Cardinal (1994), Stewart (2003), and Pearce (1994);8 the present work draws on these publications and enriches the discipline of collection studies with contextual readings from a nonWestern, colonized geography. The work benefits immensely from Jean Baudrillard’s fundamental idea in the system of collecting: that is, outside of the moment when the object enjoys an objective function or use by its owner, it Page 8 of 16

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction represents ‘subjectivity’ as now the meaning of the object is determined by the owner or self (Baudrillard in Elsner and Cardinal 1994: 7–8). (By extension, the space of collecting is also utilized to articulate ideas and meanings determined by the collector.) He adds, ‘For while the object is a resistant material body, it is also, simultaneously, a mental realm over which I hold sway, a thing whose meaning is governed by myself alone’ (Baudrillard in Elsner and Cardinal (p.xxxvii) 1994: 7–8). Baudrillard’s idea of the extension of the mental realm over the object becomes a guiding force to discern how Sayajirao extends his own ideas over art genres, their production, and an alternative course of display and consumption. These exercises to include the human agency, display, and consumption pole in the life of material objects naturally create space to study the consumer– collector and thereby plug the missing empirical and theoretical links in the framing of colonial Indian art history. Empirically, one notes that in an otherwise rich rendition of Indian art history replete with stories of its patron dynasties, there is a marked absence of data on patron–collectors of colonial India and the consequent elision of their agency in the shaping of the art produced at that time. Theoretically, art-historical writing proffers colonial institutions, art instructors, and artists as the chief protagonists in the shaping of colonial Indian art and highlights the native agent as a recipient of European ideas, practices, and tastes. Through the case of Baroda, the native collector conceives and guides new art practices and becomes a tastemaker in his role as a regular lender to exhibitions. The weaning of focus from the production pole defines the crux of this study as it focuses on the illumination of the royal collector, his ideas, patterns of consumption, and arbitration. This backroom approach aligns with ‘A New Art History’ that moves away from the descriptive, object-centred, region-based, and chronology-based approach of pure art history to other alternative frameworks.9 Thus, this book crafts alternative themes of collecting and exhibition to further the idea of Baroda as ‘provenance’, a geo-cultural space for art and craft production.10 This narrative pauses to acknowledge concerns raised by scholars such as Frederick Asher, who cautions against an art history which, if constructed from the patrons’ perspective, might constrict the discipline as an elitist one with an elitist canon (Asher in Desai 2007: 11). He suggests the framing of art history through other more populist perspectives and alternative questions. However, in this case, one defends the story of the collector as necessary to colonial Indian art history, for Sayajirao was a ‘native elite’ and not an elite European artist, instructor, ideologue, or colonial officer–bureaucrat who has hitherto authored the story of art in colonial India. Hence, the peripheral native elite is brought to the centre stage, and as the narrative unfolds, one will discover how this story also belongs (p.xxxviii) to a group of resource persons who assisted and advised Sayajirao. In the numerous subplots that concern lesser-known artisans,

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction administrators, and genres, one will see how this book serves as a starting point to include the subalterns in a new art history. The narrative’s second framing theme, modernity, represents the art and craft paradigm of princely Baroda and its many channels of sourcing, production, display, and promotion that occupy colonial and metropolitan geographies. Following Dilip Gaonkar (2001: 1–2, 15–16), modernity, in this case, is not a response or reaction to the administrative and sociopolitical modernization of Baroda, as much as it is a part of it: one that is born within the folds of Baroda’s modernizing process and one that also informs, augments, and furthers it. So, on the one hand, Baroda’s art and craft products are born within institutional setups such as residencies at the royal palace, the space of scholarships and training programmes, and mechanized polytechnics and workshops. On the other hand, the success of its arts and crafts in markets and exhibitions mark the arrival of Baroda’s cultural modernity. Additionally, Baroda’s modernity may be understood as one that is consciously designed to find global recognition but with the projection of an Indian identity. It is here that the third framing theme of nationalism appears. Nationalism is understood in this project as the maharaja’s making of a national identity through cultural projects, his strategies for economic and political self-reliance and national welfare. The idea of a nation is forged within the cross-currents of a universalizing European modern, indigenous traditions, and the alternative applications of both. Hence, the national itself is a product of assimilative tendencies implemented at a local level but pronouncing the ability to stand in for a wider national representation. This brings us to the fourth framing device of cosmopolitanism. Understood through Gerard Delanty’s ‘attitude of openness’, cosmopolitanism is explored throughout the narrative as an inclusive and democratic approach to reference diverse aesthetics and methodologies in the making of Baroda’s contemporary art and crafts (Delanty 2012: 2).11 At the risk of repeating myself, one of the things this book does not do is to dwell on descriptive analysis of individual artworks. Instead, the artworks remain secondary to primary discussions about the opening up of an art-collecting space to creative, commercial, and political ideas. Another area where this book falls short is unravelling Maharani Chimnabai’s direct (p.xxxix) agency in art commissions and collecting. Archival data hints at her presence in the larger exercise of collecting, though more private and government archives will have to be referenced in the future to establish her definite role. Many secondary sources point to her active participation in several state projects,12 thereby making it imperative to profile her as collector and ideologue. One of the other missing plots in this study is the updated information and current locations of important craft commissions such as the Baroda Screen, Pigeon House, and Baroda Balcony as well as several handicrafts from Gujarat and their current production contexts. The Kalabhavan, Diamond Jubilee Cottage Industries, and

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction the Vadodara Zilla Udyog District Industries Centre’s records should be accessed to probe these select themes. Another reason for the lack of updated information is the period of enquiry this book covers, that is, 1875–1924, which is framed by the bulk of archival data consulted. In some ways it gains credibility since art-historical studies associated with Baroda mostly begin c. 1887 when the idea of the museum was first conceived (Mehta 1995: 3, 11), or c. 1897 when European art acquisitions were made (Codell 2003). These studies rely on previous museum catalogues and essays by museum directors to understand acquisition histories. On the contrary, the current work sheds light on both Indian and European art acquisitions and patronage from as early as 1877, as presented in chapters 2 and 3. This time frame merits discussion because Sayajirao was adopted as a minor prince in 1875 and his tenure’s active engagement with arts, crafts, and exhibitions began in 1877 through Regent Dewan T. Madhavarao’s efforts. The decade of the 1870s and its related archival data have remained, in large measure, inaccessible, save for the extensive discussions on the Lakshmi Vilas Palace commission. I end my enquiry at 1924 as the Empire of India Exhibition of 1924 not only recognizes Baroda’s crafts through its catalogue but also serves as a detailed guide to methods of production and the commercial popularity of the Baroda genres. Hence, this catalogue marks the arrival of a mature and independent position for the Baroda crafts in the exhibitions’ domain. Additionally, the decade of the 1920s marks a shift in approaches to the formulation of a modern and national high art, primarily because the idea of nationhood was no longer conceived at a pan-Indian level and instead shifted to the site of the village. This politicized ruralism was a result (p.xl) of Mahatma Gandhi’s counter to colonialism and its lexicons of urban capitalism and industry (Mitter 2008: 543). As Partha Mitter (2007: 10) remarks: ‘The modernists idolized rural India as the true site of the nation, evolving artistic primitivism as an antithesis to colonial urban values.’ This phase sees an espousal of imagery from primitive and folk forms (Mitter 2007: 10, 77). Given this shift in artistic approaches, it may be necessary to examine Sayajirao’s collecting practice with different considerations from the 1920s. A summary discussion of the chapters and their main empirical themes are presented here. These themes have been formulated with the help of data accumulated chiefly from the Gujarat State Archives, Southern Circle, Vadodara, and the National Archives of India, New Delhi. This data is in the form of letters, memos, contracts, applications, and inventories dedicated to art commissions, scholarships, exhibitions, and logistical arrangements. Diaries and accounts of artists such as C. Raja Raja Varma (1896, 1895–1906), Marianne North (1894), and Valentine Prinsep (1879) have also furnished crucial empirical data. Colonial records such as Baroda’s annual administration reports and gazetteers also offer primary data as their authors belong to Sayajirao’s staff, whose members were engaged with his art-collecting practice (Dutt 1907; Elliot 1883: prefatory page). Page 11 of 16

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction Permanent displays at the Durbar Hall of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, Fatesingh Museum, and the Baroda Museum & Picture Gallery have also contributed to formulate thematic links in Sayajirao’s art patronage activities. Secondary sources have ably supported primary source materials to theorize this enquiry. Chapter 1 constitutes a biography of Sayajirao Gaekwad III and the princely state of Baroda in the Western Presidency. It underlines a marked reorientation in the ideology and lifestyle of the prince and the administrative policies of the state. The espousal of European practices and institutions in a bid to articulate societal modernization makes the thrust of this reorientation. All the same, the chapter pays keen attention to the adaptation of European systems to local practices in alternative modes. These exercises in westernization and indigenization, which were not as dichotomous in actual practice, are discussed in the private and public domains of Sayajirao’s minority and education; Baroda State’s administration and participating officials; Sayajirao’s personality, taste, and lifestyle (p.xli) as a major prince; and his statewide modernization projects. This chapter serves as a backdrop to comprehend why Sayajirao imagined and aspired to apply Baroda’s projects at the national level; thus the formulation of nationalism and its eventual crystallization to accommodate the textured idea of ‘alternative modernity’ is introduced here. This idea of the alternative modern pans out in Sayajirao’s collecting practice that becomes the nucleus of his project to fashion a new national art. Chapter 2 investigates Sayajirao’s collection and patronage of the high arts— chiefly, academic-style portraiture and salon sculpture—through the works of European and Indian artists. Due to the production of a very high volume of academic portraits in colonial India and Sayajirao’s keen engagement with the genre, it becomes central to this discussion. On the other hand, Sayajirao’s active engagement with salon sculptors despite salon sculpture’s comparatively lower output in colonial India qualifies the genre as crucial to this enquiry. While this chapter continues to pursue the theme of the articulation of modernity through patronage of European genres, it also demonstrates a distinct indigenization of the two genres and their eventual reinterpretations through the works of portraitists Tiroovengada Naidu and Raja Ravi Varma, and sculptors Augusto Felici and Fanindranath Bose. Theoretically, the chapter is focused on the theme of alternative modernity. As much as this chapter profiles Sayajirao as a well-groomed collector who was informed by various contexts of art production and display, it also contends that the maharaja and his inner coterie created a context for the reconfiguration of genres and their taste arbitration through private collecting and loans to exhibitions. The chapter undertakes an analysis of archival data on individual commissions, acquisition histories, and contracts with artists to signpost ideas that guided Sayajirao and his resource persons’ experiments.

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction Chapter 3 discusses Sayajirao and his officials’ role in the modernization and promotion of indigenous crafts through the domains of private collecting and institutional projects. Ivory craftsman Neelakandan Asari and a Trichinopoly mica painter’s presence at the palace, their experimental output and representation at exhibitions testify to modernization in the context of private collecting, while an institutional programme to elevate the standards of local pottery demonstrates modernization in the context of traditional crafts. As the reinscription of European high (p.xlii) art demonstrated in Chapter 2, this chapter examines the localization of Euro-American modes of production through Baroda’s polytechnic, the Kalabhavan. Simultaneously, the chapter argues for a modernization of the local crafts through their relocation in renewed spheres of production such as the polytechnic and its mechanized workshops, the Nazarpaga and State Furniture Works. Just as the chapter consolidates alternative applications of Euro-modern practices locally, it also reveals Baroda’s contributions towards enhancing what is often seen as a monolithic universal modern. This phenomenon is explained through the advancement of Indian crafts internationally; Sayajirao’s and Madhavarao’s commitment to the promotion of both Indian and local Baroda design is discussed through private commissions to luxury goods’ firms and special commissions for exhibition displays. Private commissions cover a range of objects such as a gem-studded walking stick, a howdah, and a tea service for the Prince of Wales. Commissions for exhibition loans constitute a Baroda Screen and Baroda Balcony. Through case studies located in the domains of royal collecting, institutional projects, commercial firms, and exhibition displays, this chapter demonstrates the formulation and qualification of a set of modernized Baroda crafts. Chapter 4 concerns itself with the integration of both high art and craft genres from the sites of Sayajirao’s private collecting, institutional projects, and Baroda’s traditional industry in a cosmopolitan Baroda category. To examine the evolution of this composite and diverse Baroda category, the chapter analyses Sayajirao and Baroda State’s loans’ inventories for exhibitions. The maharaja and his administrative staff’s exercises in the survey, identification, and promotion of local craft genres are learnt through inventories dated as early as 1877. Furthermore, inventories and correspondence dedicated to the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition, the 1893 Chicago Exposition, the 1902–3 Delhi Durbar, and the 1902 Ahmedabad Industrial Exhibition are examined. The increase in local surveys and the expansion of the Baroda category are demonstrated through the increasing numbers of genres in these inventories. The Baroda administration’s sharing of information on artists, craftsmen, and artistic styles for exhibition catalogues is also learnt from the correspondence. The chapter returns to Sayajirao’s fashioning of a national art as it reveals how this local Baroda category, which also finds representation at (p.xliii) the

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction Baroda Museum, is validated for comprising a national high art and a national craft collection. As noted earlier, the non-Western location of this fascinating story of art collecting provides new empirical data to collection studies and additionally to studies on cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and modernity. The inclusion of highart traditions alongside vernacular crafts and ancillary industries qualifies this practice as being truly egalitarian. Consequently, the wide appeal that the Baroda experiment held and its leanings to forge local and national collaborations propped it on a national footing. Despite the many indigenous and foreign sources, ideologies, and communities from which its art production drew, the Baroda model remained alternative to each of them while remaining relevant to all. These secular attributes allowed Baroda’s experiments to sit easy in multiple locations, ranging from the royal palace and state workshops to national craft museums and international displays. That ‘Sayajirao’s collecting practice is a fine expression of cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and alternative modernity’ is a statement whose appraisal makes for the narrative reveal of this book.

Note on the Usage of Spellings and Citations The book uses the spelling ‘Gaekwad’ unless quoting from some archival sources (and books such as Speeches and Addresses of His Highness Sayaji Rao III, Maharaja of Baroda, Vol. I [1927]) that adopt the spelling ‘Gaekwar’. Similarly, the spelling ‘Patan’ is used for the name of the place unless quoting from some archival sources that adopt the spelling ‘Pattan’. The municipal commissioner’s name is spelt as ‘Taleyarkhan’, unless quoting from some archival sources that spell the name as ‘Talyarkhan’.The book uses the spelling ‘dumṇi’ for palanquin, unless quoting from some archival sources that adopt the spelling damṇi. Also, the spelling ‘huzur’ is used with the exception of archival sources that employ the spelling ‘huẓoor’. The dewan’s name is spelt as R.V. ‘Dhamnaskar’ with the exception of its appearance in an archival source that adopts the spelling ‘Dhamnasker’. Vadodara is the contemporary name for Baroda city. However, this book uses the colonial name ‘Baroda’, which is also more popular in art-historical discussions and studies. Likewise, the book adopts colonial names of cities (p.xliv) such as Oudh instead of Awadh, Cashmere in place of Kashmir, and others such as Billimora, Katch, Rajkote, Broach, and so on. Archival citations follow the convention of the name of the archive, the section number, the daftar (portfolio) number, the file number, the title of the file, the letter/memo number, the name of the sender, the name of the recipient, and the date on which the letter/memo is received. Details of letters are reproduced as in the original archival correspondence. Numbers, dates, or destinations are not reproduced only in cases where they are not stated in the original document. Page 14 of 16

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction When a section/daftar/file number and title repeats itself in the subsequent endnote, I use a short reference. Also, when a document/letter/memo repeats itself in the subsequent endnote, I truncate the details to state the letter number if available or the name of the sender and the date.

Notes . (p.xlvi) Notes:

(1.) See http://www.cottageemporium.in/ (accessed on 5 October 2011). (2.) See http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ Sabyasachi+Mukherjees+Bridal+Sutra+ends+LFW+in+style/1/18606.html (accessed on 26 April 2016) and http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/reportsabyasachi-s-bridal-sutra-ends-lfw-in-style-1201013 (accessed on 26 April 2016). For details on the utilization of traditional weaves and responsible fashion by contemporary designers, see Vasudev (2012). (3.) This show was conceived by Hetal Salvi, a member of the famous Salvi family of patola weavers who live and practise in Gujarat since the eleventh century AD (email conversation with Rahul Vinayak Salvi, 14 February 2015). See http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Patola-from-Patanscorches-the-ramp/articleshow/5328410.cms (accessed on 30 July 2014). (4.) Dodiya (2012) records, ‘The mosaic ceiling with its twelve chandeliers had an incredible presence, so that inevitably your eyes went up (45 ft. high) as you entered. The assorted Venetian stained-glass windows, the marble sculptures, and the ornate floor would be an absolute distraction and certainly compete with any contemporary art placed against it. Initially, I started with the idea of doing free-standing monochrome drawings placed in a labyrinth formation, in awe of the clutter.’ Dodiya also explains the visual possibilities of royal connotations drawn from cavalry positioning, heraldry, costume, grandeur, and excess, which she recreated in the back panels of the installation. (p.xlv) (5.) For an up-to-date story of Baroda’s visual arts and associated art pedagogy in the colonial, postcolonial, modern, and contemporary time periods, see Maholay-Jaradi (2015). (6.) Brown (2009); Chakrabarty (2000, 2002); and Mitchell (2000) acknowledge the role of colonialism and the peripheries in the constitution of the modern. (7.) Nair’s (2011: 25) reading of Mysore’s modernization projects and modernity in the art and cultural domain is also presented as a very lengthy continuum. In this book, the agency for modernization rests heavily in Maharaja Sayajirao and his royal cabinet; a single coterie thus charts the route to the modern during a Page 15 of 16

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Princely Baroda’s Art and Craft Patronage: An Introduction single political reign. However, the context-specific routes to modernity in Mysore give agency to the early opponent of colonialism, Tipu Sultan (r. 1782– 99), and the late colonial bureaucracy for various projects that are regarded as defining modern moments for the entire region. Thus while acknowledging colonial interventions, Nair amplifies the role of the early modern and the later bureaucratic circles to explain the modernization of Mysore at plural levels and in plural time frames. (8.) See also several publications and projects at the Frick Centre for the History of Collecting, The Frick Collection, New York, available at http://www.frick.org/ research/center (9.) Ideas for a ‘new art history’ were initiated at the turn of the millennium at the Department of Art History and Aesthetics, Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda. The object-oriented approach of conventional art history and its focus on descriptive studies of iconography and chronological and region-based surveys were considered too narrow in scope to include other relevant themes of gender, communalism, and so on. See Panikkar, Mukherji, and Achar (2003: 50–6) and Shivaji Panikkar’s essay in Maholay-Jaradi (2015). (10.) The idea of Baroda as an evolving provenance from the early modern to contemporary times is the central theme of study in Maholay-Jaradi (2015). (11.) To understand the cosmopolitanism of Baroda’s cultural projects, their ethical responsibility, and political meanings, see Maholay-Jaradi (2015). (12.) The maharani led several projects for the welfare of women. She became the honorary president of the National Council of Women in 1926 and presided over the first All India Women’s Conference in 1927 (Diver 1943: 128–9). Maharani Chimnabai authored The Position of Women in Indian Life that was published in 1911. In this book, she discussed the isolation of Indian women from public affairs and sought to seek some solutions to the problem (Sergeant 1928: 130).

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India Sayajirao Refashions Baroda Priya Maholay-Jaradi

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords Set against princely India’s reorientation towards English–Indian hybrid lifestyles as well its English–Indian political indoctrination, this chapter traces Sayajirao’s favourable response to both cultures and political systems. In his zeal to secure locally viable institutions, Baroda’s reforms—seemingly cast in the mould of a bourgeois colonial modernity—actually culminate in a pragmatic exchange of best practices and critical regeneration of European and native systems. Through analysis of biographies, speeches, and administration reports, the chapter presents the mentoring of a minor prince as statesman, his position as the inheritor of a leading princely state, and his arrival as an astute commentator and ideologue of nationwide concerns in the face of colonial rule. As the maharaja begins to be claimed as a potential national leader, a parallel narrative highlights the assimilative nature of Baroda’s cultural projects and their underlying ideas that transcend geopolitical boundaries to stand in as potential national models. Keywords:   societal modernization, bourgeois modernity, alternative modernity, hybrid lifestyle, prestige consumption, statesman, indigenous/local, reconfiguration, khangi department

This chapter is set against princely India’s reorientation towards English–Indian hybrid lifestyles as well as the maharaja’s English–Indian political indoctrination that ensured lifelong regard for British governance and access to native subjects. His hybrid lifestyle, minority education, and the raj’s conciliatory policy Page 1 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India are seen to have prepared the prince to field European ideas and institutions alongside native modes of governance. However, avoiding the pitfalls of a complacent, superficial East–West synthesis, Sayajirao is seen as arriving at critical regenerations of both Western and local traditions. After Janaki Nair (2011: 25), the narrative clarifies the importance of reading Baroda’s reform projects in a continuum of time, for the early colonial premise of modernity shaped by Madhavarao is reinscribed with locally relevant ideas by a major, Sayajirao, to be eventually rearticulated in alternative models. To put it differently, this chapter sets the stage to comprehend how societal modernization and its many institutions of education, governance, and production, seemingly cast in the mould of a European bourgeois modernity, are actually refashioned to absorb Baroda’s sociocultural dynamics. Additionally, the maharaja is also seen circumventing colonial models to directly import European and American institutions through his own field research and assess their suitability through keen surveys at grass-roots level within the state. (p.2) The narrative abounds with excerpts from Sayajirao’s biographies, speeches, administration reports, and impressions of state guests to analyse foundational ideas that guide the maharaja’s and Baroda State’s policies and projects. It emphasizes Sayajirao’s individual role despite the strong colonial presence in princely India. Following Julie Codell’s narrative of the maharaja’s multiple personae, Sayajirao is presented in varied roles, which range from a minor prince, an anglicized cosmopolite and a consumer, inheritor of an exotic collection, as well as a dynamic statesman to demonstrate how ideas from the private royal chambers are extended to state projects (Codell in Codell and Macleod 1998). The ability of Baroda’s reforms to transcend their geopolitical boundaries makes the state exemplary as a potential national model. The maharaja’s avowed prioritizing of the nation’s interest before that of princely India and his inclusive strategies for nationwide development and welfare are widely noted. Given Baroda’s successful reform story, the Gaekwad is perceived as a threat to the British and, consequently, often accused to be a dissenter of British rule. Moreover, in his increasing visibility as a spokesperson for national concerns lies his influence as a leader of national importance. Thus, this chapter clarifies why exactly Baroda’s projects are claimed as being nationally relevant. It then carefully delineates the maharaja’s ideas, aspirations, policies, and implementations to comprehend the ideological signposting of his art and craft projects in the rest of the book. The prince’s consumption patterns in the royal palace are located in Maurizio Peleggi’s global context of a growing transnational elite that opts for what are increasingly seen as prestige (Western) goods to project a modern identity (Peleggi 2002: 4, 11–13, 24, 59–63, 66–7). After Walter Durost’s (1932: 11, 43) and Susan Pearce’s (1994: 157–9) theories in object/collection studies, these royal consumption patterns are nuanced and linked with the consumer’s ideas: first, the consumer supports an integration of both European and Indian Page 2 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India systems; second, he seeks an adaptation of foreign systems to local ideas; and in the third instance, he arrives at a critically informed reconfiguration of both. The maharaja’s orientation towards composite ideologies of governance and the creation of original models are framed in K.N. Panikkar (2007: 12, 14–15) and Manu Bhagavan’s (2001, 2002) readings of resistance, alienation, and the (p.3) formulation of alternatives as a counter to colonialism and its rationale to maintain a difference between the rulers and the ruled.

Part I: English–Indian Ideas, Education, and a Cosmopolitan Lifestyle 1.1 Princely Options under British Raj

The year 1857 marked a shift in the British imperial policy as it halted direct annexation of new territories within the colony (Copland 1982: 46). The armed uprising of 1857 and efforts to combat it drained the imperial command of its financial resources and also resulted in scarce manpower (Copland 1982: 46; Ramusack 2004: 130). This led to a new arrangement wherein parts of the colony were directly administered through the company officers while others were indirectly administered through Indian princes (Ramusack 2004: 131). The empire now constituted directly ruled and indirectly ruled British India (Ramusack 2004: 6). According to Barbara Ramusack (2004: 48–9), ‘The British treaties did not coerce the princes into absolute subordination, but most certainly shaped their political futures through a restriction of princely options.’ The British reduced and constricted sovereign princely authority in areas of defence, external affairs, and communication, yet the princes cruised along the path of development in diverse areas (Copland 1982: 96; Ramusack 2004: 2). The variegated levels of development in each state shed light on individual princes’ personal initiatives alongside their evolving roles within the public sphere of the colony and the empire (Ramusack 2004: 6, 204). Ian Copland argues that despite indirect British rule in the princely states of India, the princes enjoyed ample scope to ‘pursue their traditional dynastic objectives’, albeit with modifications (1982: xii). By extension, Copland’s view holds true for the arts and cultural sphere; the princes of the raj firmly continued in their role as art patrons. However, the contingent space of politics gave rise to new modes of production, expression, and spaces of display. While some were directly governed by the colonial administration, it was up to the princes to manoeuvre their own agendas creatively within the Raj–native states’ interstices. Baroda State’s position in the hierarchy of development and its prince Sayajirao’s deft exercising of his princely options, both political and cultural, constitute the fulcrum of this chapter. (p.4) In the grand theatre of British raj, with the colony, princely India and the metropole as overlapping settings, Sayajirao appeared in diverse roles, each etched out carefully through his many self-projections in the form of biographies and speeches; for this chapter, administration reports and archival data are also read in conjunction to analyse Sayajirao’s personality and that of Baroda State. The interpretation of these sources is guided by Julie Codell’s examination of Page 3 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India Sayajirao’s biographies wherein she contends that despite the prince’s many self-fashioned projections of himself— vacillating between the moderate, anglicized enlightened reformer; moderate or radical Indian nationalist; exotic raja; and collaborator or dissenter of British rule—to suit diverse audiences, the central fact remains that he constructed a national project that relied on both Euro-American and indigenous institutions, ideas, and practices (Codell in Codell and Macleod 1998: 6, 14, 17, 21, 25, 29). In short, these multiple personae, while paying lip service to the British masters and demonstrating a degree of integration with Western culture to gain empathy from British audiences, also served national agendas (Codell and Macleod 1998: 5–6). Drawing on Codell’s framework, Sayajirao is first profiled as a minor prince of a native princely state whose grooming avails of a mixed indigenous and colonial-English education. Secondly, he is profiled as an inheritor or raja of an exotic court and collection, which is juxtaposed with his next profile as an anglicized royal consumer. Thirdly, he is positioned as a reformer and statesman, and lastly as an ideologue of reformist nationalism. This sharp etching of Sayajirao’s character is only a springboard to the remaining chapters that will see a unification of his diverse avatars to make his ideas, institutions, and his state that much more unified and textured. 1.2 Birth of Princely Baroda

The birth of Baroda as a princely state may be situated in the era of Mughal decline which, through revisionist scholarship, is now regarded as an era of new political formations, strong successor states, and indigenous capitalism (Ramusack 2004: 12, 47). Classified as a warrior state, Baroda was crafted due to repeated Maratha invasions led by Shivaji of the Bhonsale clan in the western and northern Mughal territories in the second half of the seventeenth century (Ramusack 2004: 26). Typically, (p.5) Maratha chiefs forged alliances with local officers and annexed territory within Gujarat. Upon their return to the Maratha territory, these chieftains were promoted to higher ranks as commanders-inchief since they also helped the Maratha kings negotiate a right to collect levies from Gujarat. One such commander-in-chief was Damajirao Gaekwad who was promoted by Raja Shahu of Kolhapur, another Maratha base (Kothekara 1977: 2– 3). His successor Pilajirao established the Gaekwad1 line in Baroda in 1734 (Kothekara 1977: 3). Baroda State emerged as a result of rival claims between the Gaekwads, the Peshwas,2 and later the East India Company. The drawing of boundaries was based on the ‘revenue-yielding capacity’ of the different provinces (Kooiman 2002: 37). By furthering the policy of tributary territories and maintenance of vassal kings/chiefs, the Gaekwads brought the entire Baroda State under their control in 1813. With the usurpation of the Peshwa power in the region, another round of redistribution of the provinces followed: major ports and even inland cities such as Ahmedabad and Surat went to the Britishruled segments, while the Gaekwads received five territorial divisions that formed Baroda and remained scattered between the British-ruled territories. Page 4 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India This graphic description of Baroda’s geographical position in the crevices of British India quite literally represents the political picture of uneven, tensionridden relations that Baroda would share with the British while being in the grip of their paramountcy. After a few appointments among rival Gaekwad claimants, the first significant ruler Sayajirao II ascended the throne in 1819. He was succeeded by his son Ganpatrao Gaekwad (r. 1847–56), followed by Sayajirao II’s brothers Khanderao (r. 1856–70) and Malharrao (r. 1871–5). The latter two are significant rulers for our purposes since they collected and commissioned important pieces of jewellery and artillery that provided a nucleus of resources for

Figure 1.1 Map of Baroda (1904), data as of 1900–3, report of famine operations in Baroda State, Bombay: Times of India Press.

Sayajirao’s future collecting practice. Despite Khanderao’s

Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda.

corrupt governance, he earned the rulers of his line the title of

Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

‘maharaja’. During the uprising of 1857, his continued support to the British earned him a reward in which the administration remitted a previous fine. The title ‘His Highness the Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda’ appears for the first time in the sanad3 (Sergeant 1928: 11). The sanads of 1862 ensured the princes continuity of their dynasty through adoption, but they also meant that the British government had to necessarily endorse and (p.6) (p.7) approve the adoption choices (Ramusack 2004: 107). Thus, while the title of maharaja enriched Baroda’s premier position among the native princely states, the sanad ensured British presence in Baroda. Next, Malharrao, who ascended the throne in 1871, was finally deposed in 1875 due to incessant misrule. In the absence of a legal heir, the widow of Khanderao, Jamnabai, nominated an heir to the throne. With a joint approval from the family preceptor or upadhyaya,4 a commission appointed by the government of India and Madhavarao Tanjorkar, who would go on to become the famous dewan T. Madhavarao, the maharani selected Gopalrao, a young boy from the second line of Gaekwads, as heir to the throne (Rice 1931: vol. 1, 32). He became Sayajirao III, the protagonist of this book.

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India The British resident Alexander Walker arbitrated actively between 1802 and 1807 in matters of succession as well as revenue collection, both of which brought the state ‘under the umbrella of British paramountcy’ (Copland 1982: 17–19; Ramusack 2004: 70). Sayajirao’s minority gave the British a renewed opportunity to ‘govern’ the state through what Copland calls a British-vetted dewan, T. Madhavarao. Given his wide-ranging experience as an educationist in Madras and as dewan in the states of Travancore (1857–72) and Indore (1873– 5), Madhavarao was appointed by the British to steer Baroda forward from its bankrupt state induced by Malharrao. This chapter will review Madhavarao’s statewide reforms in Part II, but of immediate interest is the British appointee’s role in grooming a young Sayajirao through the lens of the former’s own conviction in colonial institutions.5 1.3 Unorthodox Mentoring for a Minor Prince

The illiterate Gopalrao was groomed to become a statesman and connoisseur of great repute. Sayajirao’s education began formally in 1875 at the age of 12. Two Indian tutors, Keshavrao Pandit and Vyankatesh Joshi, began lessons at the old Sarkarwada Palace (Sergeant 1928: 26). This education being viewed as incomplete, F.A.H. Elliot, a British civil servant, was selected as the prince’s tutor (Sergeant 1928: 31). The comprehensive curriculum required Sayajirao to engage with languages, social sciences, elementary mathematics, in addition to a special focus on Indian history (Sergeant 1928: 35). There was also a special programme on instructions (p.8) for a prince that dealt with aspects of administration, social welfare, public health, and so on. Training in sports included indigenous games such as sword exercise as well as Western sports like billiards (Sergeant 1928: 36). The young prince also observed fasts and ceremonies that were viewed as an integral part of his understanding of religious life and rituals (Sergeant 1928: 36). A similar training programme was devised for the 16-year-old prince Rajaram of Kolhapur who had to leave the family home and sojourn in a house near the Residency (West 1872: 147). Around 1880, Elliot was tasked to expedite the coaching programme, bearing in view the termination of Sayajirao’s minority by 1881. Interestingly, this last segment of lessons in public administration was based on T. Madhavarao’s memorandum that consisted of principles on which Sayajirao should govern the state (Madhava Rao 1881; West 1872: 44). This last lap of lectures engaged stalwarts from the fields of public administration, revenue, and law, such as Dewan T. Madhavarao, Kazi Shahabudin Sar Subha or an equivalent of the revenue commissioner of Baroda, Chief Justice Cursetji Rustomji, Judge of the high court on Hindu law J.S. Gadgil, Naib or Assistant Dewan on police matters V.J. Kirtane, Settlement Officer and Military Secretary Pestonji Jehangir; A.H. Tamhane lectured on accounts and C.R. Thanawalla on law (Sergeant 1928: 46).

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India Madhavarao’s pro-colonial approach may be a contrast to Elliot’s training which, time and again, is regarded as unorthodox in its emphasis to govern the state along original lines (Copland 1982: 188).6 Moreover, Sayajirao was not part of the Rajkumar College cohort like his other princely counterparts. To ensure reform, stability, and prosperity in the colony, Rajkumar College, the eastern Eton, was founded in Rajkot between 1868 and 1870 for Indian princes (Copland 1982: 121). It also doubled up as a space to politically indoctrinate these students who would become pro-British administrators of several states (Copland 1982: 135). Sayajirao’s education within the private chambers of Lakshmi Vilas was certainly different from the generic Rajkumar model. Due to Madhavarao’s presence, a pro-British slant in the overall mentoring of Sayajirao cannot be negated to the extent of favouring colonial institutions that are reflected in Baroda State’s reforms initiated by the dewan. And every British appointee was mandated to mentor princes to harbour a favourable response towards British governance (Copland 1928: 133–5). However, one also sees a simultaneous emphasis on native (p.9) modes of governance, which, in addition to Elliot, may be attributed to the raj’s revisionist policy in its civilizing mission of the princes and people. Reform was the solution to help princes meet the minimum standards of British public behaviour and refrain from misrule (Copland 1928: 126). Basically, all forms of British education and reform were a ground for indoctrination of the colonized subjects such that they would see reason in the British raj and support its continuing presence indefinitely. As such, the British civilizing mission had begun in the 1820s and 1830s (Copland 1928: 21). However, overzealous reformers and excessive reform became synonymous with British self-interest and made the durbars even more resistant, conservative, and suspicious. This climate led British officials to revise their policy, accept the princes as natural allies, and credit them with responsible governance (Copland 1928: 126–8, 172). As Copland analyses the pre-1857 period when annexations and interference were the order of the day, reform/modernization could only be achieved through British-style governments. However, from 1870 to 1890 paramountcy sought reform through its faith in the malleability and capability of Indian institutions.7 This faith already puts a premium on indigenous systems and institutions and places both Madhavarao and Sayajirao in an advantageous position. Repeatedly, the conciliatory approach made its rounds through viceroys, officers, and governors who were pro-princes and pro-durbari in their fashioning of British feudatory policy. Sir James Fergusson and his successor Lord Reay (between 1883 and 1886) advocated the conciliatory approach and underlined that a British government could not replace the durbars permanently. Reay said, ‘British management should not aim to transform the State into a British district, but administer it in such a way that when restored to its dynasty, the Native Chief should be able at once to resume government according to the best Native ideas’ (Lord Reay to Lord Cross, cited in Copland 1928: 173–4). Page 7 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India This fortuitous climate of British revisionist policy allowed the prince a chance to appreciate durbari governance alongside the strength of Western institutions. Reform and modernization through colonial-style projects were laid out, but the scope to develop other alternative models was not suppressed. The seed was thus sown for modern experiments along a ‘continuum’; a series of projects that would take their (p.10) cue differently from colonial modernity and indigenous institutions and further arrive at independent, alternative models. Questioning the colonial, and as a result opting for alternative substitutes, was already underway as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century in areas of sociocultural reform, literary projects, scientific enquiry, and indigenous medicine (Panikkar 2007: 12, 14–15). The widespread debates in voluntary and cultural organizations, critical writings in newspapers and periodicals, and the crystallization of the idea of an alternative through national educational institutions would have put Sayajirao in the know of this nationwide discussion; these intellectual communities had a widespread presence in Bombay apart from Calcutta and Madras (Panikkar 2007: 15, 60). These discussions acknowledged the hollow commitment of the colonial regime to reform the colony and saw through its lack of liberal credentials that denied critical space to the colonized (Panikkar 2007: 9–10). Secondly, even after westernizing themselves, the Indian middle class remained at the periphery of the British mainstream, thereby exposing that the aim of the British was never to close the gulf between colonizer and colonized but to instead perpetuate a cultural heterogeneity and thus maintain a rule of difference (Panikkar 2007: 13). Moreover, this circuitous process of westernization and non-acceptance led to a sense of ‘dual alienation’ on the part of the colonized: one from his own tradition and the other from the dominant colonial culture.8 Hence there arose a need to counter the colonial domination and hegemony, and this counterresponse manifested in the idea of finding alternatives in the spheres of administration, culture, and intellectual thought. Alienation from one meant engagement with another; it remains to be seen what Sayajirao would engage with in his moment of alienation and search for an alternative. His minority education makes Sayajirao’s future predictive to the extent that he nurtured a benign temperament towards both Western and native institutions without being biased towards any one. His dynamism lay in not becoming complacent with either and instead formulating alternatives that saw an exchange of best practices between the two systems. Another reason for Sayajirao’s favourable temperament towards British models was that Baroda was mostly controlled by the foreign (p.11) office in Simla and not the Bombay Agency. The more measured, moderate path adopted by Simla in their civilizing mission did not render a young Sayajirao resistant to change. Had Baroda been in the ambit of Bombay’s control, the story of Sayajirao’s orientation towards reform may have been different. Bombay generally preferred princes’ minorities to continue with the British-dominated regimes in periods of interregnum and Page 8 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India sign unreasonable minority agreements; all these practices were discouraged by Simla (Copland 1982: 168–9, 172). Moreover, some officers from Sayajirao’s minority education marked a sustained presence in his administration and palace for several years. As much as they initiated Sayajirao into Baroda’s administration during his minority, they also represented his ideas in later years through the same mould of exchange of best practices. Thus, without the wellrounded mentoring by the likes of Elliot and Madhavarao, Sayajirao’s projects, including his private art-collecting practice, may not have gained the comprehensive character they eventually did. 1.4 Sayajirao’s Close Coterie and the Huzur Cutchery

From the point of view of art collecting, archival sources employed in this chapter adumbrate Elliot’s and Madhavarao’s emergence as important resource persons. Elliot continued to remain Sayajirao’s mentor and confidante in later years as can be learnt from several letters exchanged between the two (Copland 1982: 189). These engagements point to a distinct network that constituted what may be referred to as Sayajirao’s ‘inner coterie’, ‘cabinet’ or ‘palace staff’. Select officers became increasingly entrenched in Sayajirao’s collecting practice, institutional projects, and exhibition loans as resource personnel, advisors, and managers. The shared position of several officials between the royal palace and state administration also facilitated their agency effectively across private and institutional spheres. Moreover, the concept of ‘close coterie’ afforded the maharaja’s decision to be communicated through spokespersons and representatives other than himself. It is important to take note of the fact that while Sayajirao’s voice does not come across directly in some art commissions and projects, his office, that is, the Huzur Office, was always involved in these communications. The word huzur, meaning ‘present’, came from (p.12) the Persian haazir, meaning ‘to be present’; it began to be used at South Asian courts to mean sir/His Excellency (Feroz ud Din 2004 [1897]: 603; Rizvi 2003: 135; Yates 1847: 227). Sayajirao’s occupancy of the Huzur Office marked his rites of passage from a minor prince to a maharaja. His decision was mandatory for the resolution of all issues referred to the Huzur Office. This book employs the phrase ‘Sayajirao and his resource persons’, for in some cases decisions were made by the dewan’s office or khangi (household) department, while at other times, the dewan was signing off on behalf of the Huzur Office but not without the huzur’s consent. For, as Philip Sergeant (1928: 58) explains, the huzur orders or royal orders (49,472 in all) ‘to embody an instructive diary of His Highness’ opinions during the period of his personal administration; for it has been his practice, in giving the orders, to point out the general principles on which he acts, to be circulated afterwards for the guidance of his affairs’. This means that in addition to a specific corpus of instructions and opinions, the orders explain a post-instruction comment on why these opinions–instructions were issued so that together these served as a manual for other officials. This

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India practice obviously made the maharaja’s decisions and rationales known to his cabinet. In Sayajirao’s case he was groomed not only to become a statesman but also a connoisseur of much repute. The means and resources to support the huzur’s activities of patronage and collecting were met through Baroda’s principal position in the native political hierarchy. 1.5 Royal Resources for a Private Collection

It would be appropriate to introduce Sayajirao and Baroda State with a description provided by Edward Clair Weeden who was the state guest of Baroda for 12 months from October 1910 onwards and lived in the guest suite of the

Figure 1.2 Sayajirao Gaekwad III’s

Lakshmi Vilas Palace and saw the royal chambers closely

coronation (1881). Sayajirao (top picture, first row, seated fourth from the left). T.

(Weeden 1911: 10). He wrote: ‘…The Maharaja Gaekwar of

Madhavarao (second picture, first row, seated fourth from the right; top picture,

second row, standing fourth from the Baroda, G.C.S.I., one of the right), F.A.H. Elliot (top picture, first row, three Premier Princes of India, seated fourth from the right), and other with a salute of twenty-one mentors and officials. guns, the ruler of two millions of men, reputed to possess the Courtesy of the Department of Museums, finest collection of jewels in the Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not world and to have a fabulous to be reproduced without prior revenue at his permission of the Director of Museums. disposal’ (Weeden 1911: 1). Photograph: Manish Chauhan. Furthermore, Maud Diver’s (1943: 2) explanation reasserts Sayajirao and Baroda State’s eminence among native states. (p.13) (p.14) Baroda was among the three leading princely states whose leaders enjoyed the title of ‘maharaja’ as opposed to chiefs of smaller kingdoms and principalities who enjoyed such titles as ‘nawabs’, ‘raja’, and so on. Furthermore, Diver

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India clarifies there were two ceremonial aspects that decided the rank of Indian princes. [First was] the public indication of his precedence and prestige by the exact position of his seat at Imperial Durbars; [second was] the number of guns that make up his royal salute. Out of six hundred chiefs, only seventythree are entitled to that coveted mark of royalty: only five of them being accorded the maximum of twenty-one gun[s]. These are known as the twenty-one-gun Princes: Hyderabad, Mysore, Kashmir, Gwalior, Baroda. (Diver 1943: 16) Native states enjoyed gun salutes based on the criteria of ‘historical importance, size of territory and population, regional status, service to the British, and modernizing reforms’ (Ramusack 2004: 90). Additionally, Baroda was a prestigious stopover for viceroys and the British royalty. Its core collection of world-renowned jewels, artillery, and ceremonial paraphernalia enhanced the state’s profile and firmly anchored Sayajirao in Codell’s category of the ‘exotic raja’. Indeed these items from Baroda’s collection were sought out in original, miniature, or photographic form for colonial exhibitions to complete the oriental, exotic segments of display, which in turn completed the picture of the empire.

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India 1.5.1 Royal Jewels

The Baroda jewels moved between the various royal residential spaces. At the time that Weeden (1911: 50) wrote, the crown jewels were stored in the Nazarbag Palace, behind the old Sarkarwada Palace. According to Sergeant’s (1928: 27) record, the jewel chamber was located at the second level of the old Sarkarwada Palace. Some outstanding pieces made up this famous collection of jewels. The seven-stringed pearl necklace was an important piece in the collection and was valued at 50 lakh in 1911 (Diver

Figure 1.3 Nazarbag Palace, Album no. 22: Views of Baroda, page 23. Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Archives. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

1943: 130; Weeden 1911: 311). The diamond necklace was another significant piece valued at 35 lakh. It included the famed ninth-largest diamond of the world called (p.15) (p.16) the Star of the South, a black pearl, and diamond aigrettes (Diver 1943: 130; Weeden 1911: 311). Khanderao purchased this 125-carat Star of the South diamond for 80,000 British Figure 1.4 Makarpura Palace, Album no. pounds after it was discovered 22: Views of Baroda, page 8. in Brazil (Sergeant 1928: 9). Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum This necklace was worn by Archives. Sayajirao at the Delhi Durbar of Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 1903 (Sergeant 1928: 112). A collection of emeralds and a belt or stomacher of graduated pearls were also important pieces (Sergeant 1928: 162). The Prince of Wales during his visit of 1875 saw the crown jewels at the Motibag (Sergeant 1928: 30). Sayajirao showed the jewels personally to Viceroy Lord Dufferin during his visit of 1885. The Prince of Wales, on his visit to Baroda in 1921, was taken to see the crown jewels at the Nazarbag Palace (Sergeant 1928: 162). C. Raja Raja Varma (1896: 31–2), portraitist Ravi Varma’s brother and manager, records viewing these jewels at the Nazarbag Palace in 1895. The Hungarian mother–daughter artist duo, Elizabeth and Sass Brunner, Page 12 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India painted the Gaekwad’s royal buildings and objects, one of them being Sayajirao’s coronation turban and jewels of 1881, which may have been brought out for private viewing in 1939 for the artists. Similar collections were found among select princely households such as Patiala and Nawanagar. The House of Patiala gave two large commissions to Boucheron and Cartier between 1925 and 1928; in fact this is believed to be the largest commission executed by Cartier (Jaffer 2006: 59). The famous Patiala necklace was part of this commission: it was made from platinum and set assorted stones such as white topazes, synthetic rubies, white zirconias, among others (Jaffer 2006: 5). Ranjitsinhji of Nawanagar (r. 1907–33) was regarded as an authority on precious stones and possessed a large, card-indexed collection of jewels (Jaffer 2006: 60). Princely households came to be known for their collections as well as choice pieces such as the maharaja of Kapurthala’s (r. 1877–1949) emerald turban ornament made by Cartier and Tukojirao Holkar II of Indore’s (r. 1903–26) pear-shaped Golconda diamonds purchased from Chaumet and later known as the Indore pears (Jaffer 2006: 59–60). Much like these princes, the Baroda royals, too, saw their collection as emblematic of the family and state’s wealth and power; hence its display for guests had become a regular practice. The picture of this collection also grew in popular imagination, as can be learnt from the guests’ and biographers’ documentations of viewing sessions. (p.17) 1.5.2 Royal Pageantry Items

The second segment of the core collection, that is, the royal pageantry items, also made an indelible mark on public perception due to the precious materials used in their making. These items became important loans from the Baroda Durbar to colonial exhibitions. Weeden (1911: 34) saw this collection in a compound about 500 yards from the Lakshmi Vilas Palace. It housed the animals and trappings typically displayed during state pageants. For a better understanding, one divides this segment into three sections. The first section was seen in the first court that housed the famous gold and silver carriages with solid gold and silver wheels. The bullock

Figure 1.5 The official coronation jewellery and turban of Sayajirao Gaekwad III, painted by E.F. Sass Brunner (1939), oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India carts were also stationed here. ‘The prettiest of all are (sic) the bullock cart, with the cloth of gold with which the bullocks are covered from head to foot and the scores of gold and silver bells with which they are decked. Behind each carriage is a large glass case, in which all these beautiful things (p.18) are displayed’ (Weeden 1911: 34). In addition, coach houses, motorcars, carriages for state officials, and horses were all parked in these courts. The second section of this segment of pageantry regalia consists of the elephant howdah (seat) and other elephant accessories stored near the carriages and bullocks. This segment enjoyed documentation by various authors due to its impressive scale. Diver records seeing this segment of the collection in the following words: Now he rode aloft on his

Figure 1.6 Pageantry items: carriages, bullock carts, c. 1904.

elephant in his golden state howdah, the size of a small

Collection: Central Library, Mandvi,

motor car, that took twentyfour men to lift it; yet the

Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

Baroda.

great beast, already heavy laden, bore it as though it were made of basket-work. The state elephant’s accessories and paraphernalia were all cast in gold. … [H]is neck hung with a massive chain of gold mohurs; tusks cased in gold, the huge flapping ears weighed down with earrings the size of breastplates; anklets hung with golden bells: the saddle cloth of gold hanging almost to the ground: the worth of him as he stood amounting to about pound 200,000. (Diver 1943: 133) (p.19)

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India The third section of this segment is the artillery. According to Weeden (1911: 312–13), across the road from the Nazarbag Palace, in a mud building, the famous guns, two gold and two silver ones, are housed. The guns are 280 pounds each; the carriages, ramrods, and other accompanying instruments and apparatuses are also cast in the same precious metals. C. Raja Raja Varma (1896: 31) notes how this impressive gold and silver artillery was drawn by bullocks with resplendent

Figure 1.7 Elephant with howdah in procession, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

trappings. Khanderao commissioned the casting of two silver guns (Sergeant 1928: 9). To surpass his brother’s commission, Malharrao commissioned two gold ones. They were originally cast to fire the salute for the Prince of Wales, that is, the future King Edward VII, who was touring Baroda in 1875 (Weeden 1911: 312). Instead, they were displayed in Bombay along with Baroda State’s army during the prince’s visit (Sergeant 1928: 29). In later years, Sayajirao melted a silver and a gold gun Figure 1.8 The Gold Gun, Album no. 22: (Sergeant 1928: 29); this Views of Baroda, page 34. example reinforces the point Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum that these early possessions Archives. were the foundational basis for Sayajirao’s later collecting Photograph: Manish Chauhan. practice. The remaining one silver (p.20) and one gold gun continued to be displayed at state pageants (Sergeant 1928: 14). Much like the jewels, the significance of these ceremonial pieces as indicative of power and riches can be learnt from commissions made to itinerant artists: Marianne North (1894: 76), a natural-history painter, was commissioned to document the Baroda Page 15 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India gold and silver guns, bullocks, saddlery, state elephants with their ornaments, and the maharani’s gold carriage. The Baroda court also invited one Monsieur Druet to paint pageants and cavalry soldiers.9 1.5.3 Pearl Carpet

The third segment in the core collection was a stand-alone piece that continues to make news even today. The famous Baroda Carpet or Pearl Carpet was commissioned by Khanderao as a present for the Prophet’s tomb in Mecca (Sergeant 1928: 10). It was studded with rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and turquoise (Diver 1943: 130). Khanderao’s successors did not donate this carpet to Mecca and instead kept it in the royal collection. It was acquired by other collectors in later years through direct (p.21) purchase or auction and is currently a part of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha. In closing, it is appropriate to draw attention to two points. Firstly, these treasures inherited by Sayajirao came to be associated with Baroda over the years and thereby lent the state and its royal household a reputation for owning a fabled collection. Secondly, this inherited collection bore immense significance as a foundational basis to reinvigorate Sayajirao’s collecting practice as can be learnt from the fact that pieces were melted down to be recast as new collectibles. Even precious stones and gems were reset in new designs. To quote Weeden once again: We wandered for some time through the vast cellars beneath the palace, which are filled with cupboards crammed with the ancient gold and silver vessels and ornaments belonging to former maharajas. They form an inexhaustible supply of wealth on which the Gaekwar can draw when he is in the mood for a little more household plate. They are just popped into the melting-pot and sent to London, from which they return in a few months in the form of a new dinner-service, dressing case, or whatever it may be. (Weeden 1911: 312) Weeden’s record does not disparage Sayajirao’s practice, nor does he perceive the collector as fickle. The overall tone of his biography proves that Weeden was awed by the Gaekwad family’s wealth and lifestyle, themes that enjoy an overarching presence in his writing. Since there is not much comparative data in the Indian tradition of collecting, it is hard to say if this was a particularly Indian practice wherein a collector regards segments of his collection as expendable in order to make new things. The Western tradition of collecting most often saw collectibles as recreating personal, spatial, and temporal experiences; collectibles also fulfilled personal desires and longings (Baudrillard in Elsner and Cardinal 1994: 11, 16, 24; Stewart 2003: xii). Hence, the idea of expendable collectibles remains rare. Madhavarao’s astute advice of 1881 sits well in the context of Sayajirao’s practice. He advised a young Sayajirao to utilize old stock for new pieces: ‘I would strongly advise against further investments in jewellery Page 16 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India and plate. What there is already in hand is really much more than sufficient for the largest and most ambitious family’ (Madhava Rao 1881: Chapter XXXV, 236). The dewan regent’s general advice emphasized a (p.22) trimming of unnecessary expenses in the khangi department, refraining from using public money for the khangi expenses, and generally maintaining detailed accounts of the palace treasury (Madhava Rao 1881). This leads us to the further grooming of Sayajirao as a collector–patron who successfully built on his inherited collection, albeit with a renewed vision, to ensure that his personal collecting practice could lend ideas to statewide projects. While large parts of this royal collection remained in the Lakshmi Vilas and its associated spaces, some parts of it served as finance or design resources for the production of new items. The core collection was thus pegged in the facilitation of new commissions, especially in the context of reorientation of lifestyle and consumption practices, which is explored next. 1.6 Prestige Goods and Membership to the Global Elite

A macro-level study of a reorientation towards English–Indian hybrid lifestyles in elite princely India and a further exploration of trends in hybridity, chiefly the patronage of hybrid residential spaces, lend themselves to explore micro-level themes such as the Lakshmi Vilas’s architecture, a markedly hybrid decor, and the lifestyle it supported. This provides an important context to understand the support for hybrid or reconfigured art and craft genres in Sayajirao’s private collecting practice. To this end, the section inaugurates a theoretical idea by Maurizio Peleggi (2002: 13, 34), which serves as a framework to comprehend Sayajirao’s ‘English–Indian’ modes of consumption; this idea helps one to locate Sayajirao as part of a growing fraternity of modernized, cosmopolitan, and transnational elite worldwide. Among the Indian royalty, one can view the assimilation of European practices and things in two distinct phases; that is, pre-1850 and post-1850. For our purposes, the post-1850s phase is more relevant for its intensity of assimilation of English ways and also since Sayajirao debuted in this phase as a minor prince and maharaja. However, for the sake of drawing on a historical background and establishing continuity, it is crucial to examine the pre-1850s foundational phase briefly. The first phase of assimilation in the pre-1850 period was confined to architecture, furniture, and European objects. Two outstanding examples of Indian royalty in the early period of (p.23) British rule, who represent patronage of English goods, are the nawabs of Arcot and Oudh (Jaffer 2006: 14). The nawab of Arcot employed a British advisor from 1770 to 1774 and furnished his palace with European furniture and accessories; a similar affinity for English things resonated in the architectural patronage by Saadat Ali of Oudh in 1803 (Jaffer 2006: 14, 228). He built several palaces and villas in different architectural designs ranging from the classical- to the English-house style and castle designs to country villas. The interiors were European so as to be able to

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India entertain British visitors. The penchant for European furniture and English commodities had gained root. This would peak out in the post-1850s phase. From the 1850s, we see a more well-rounded assimilation of various aspects of the English lifestyle, which included education, food, clothes, and language in addition to house and decor items. Particularly, this assimilation among the Indian royalty was due to hegemonic political control by the company and closer interactions between the Indian royalty and British officials. With an overall reduced political and economic role, the Indian royalty did not require fortified palace mansions and instead, the new residential projects were geared towards accommodating recreational activities and English-style entertainment (Tillotson 1989: 26–7). Now with British rule established as the overwhelmingly dominant temporal regime, the maharajas entertained British officials frequently and familiarized themselves with English manners and customs. Moreover, their own travels to Europe groomed their tastes for European things and practices associated with lifestyle. In addition to the aforementioned factors which Giles Tillotson (1989: 29–33) regards as ‘passive westernization’, the Indian princes also responded to a ‘deliberate policy of active westernization on the part of the British Government’. This chiefly consisted of introducing European literature and science through education. Another crucial cause for Europeanization may be seen in the hierarchy among princely states with regard to varying degrees of political power in terms of legislative and administrative independence. This hierarchy was reinforced through alternative means of expression such as architectural projects and other kingly resources. Post 1850s, the sheer volume of refurbishment and building projects marks a frenzied patronage of distinct English–Indian hybrid architectural traditions, popularly known as the Indo-Saracenic.10 The enthusiasm for (p.24) a new imperial architecture in India engaged European architects who adapted Indian styles to British buildings. This genre aspired to an uneasy combination of twin aims: first, a ‘revival’ of indigenous traditions; and second, maintenance of British presence and its civilizing-westernizing mission in the colony (Tillotson 1989: 37). On the part of the patrons, there was an element of social or political prestige in this cultural alignment with the British, chiefly because standards of civilization were now ‘Western’ (Tillotson 1989: 40–1). This concurs with Peleggi’s (2002: 21, 24) idea that these European-style buildings became expressions of prestige consumption to belong to the registers of transnational elite. This phase of less critical westernization may be seen as the beginning of a continuum that would field more informed experiments. As European styles now merged with vernacular-Indic architectural patterns, Indian princes could conform to a dual identity: that of the ‘modernized elite’ as well as the ‘native prince’ who displayed his indigenous identity. In terms of architectural appreciation, Tillotson questions the real degree to which these two canons, the Western and indigenous, were integrated and resolved in the Page 18 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India final design. The reason why one dwells on this discussion is because it reappears in the denouement to the book, to eventually bring to the fore the full and final integration of indigenous and Western ideas in Sayajirao’s project of a modern nationalism, whose visual expression, albeit fractionally, begins with the Lakshmi Vilas Palace. 1.7 Euro-Indian Objects and Local Consumption at Lakshmi Vilas Palace

The construction of the Lakshmi Vilas, a significant example of this new paradigm of English–Indian residential spaces and emerging artistic tastes, was started in 1878 by Charles Mant and completed by Robert Chisholm in 1890 (Jaffer 2006: 228–9). It was commissioned by Sayajirao and built at a cost of 180,000 British pounds. The palace is a majestic English-style building with Indian features such as domes, deeply curved eaves, balconies, arches, pierced screens, and mouldings. In Chisholm’s own assessment, there are hints of a superficial grafting of Indian details and forms on the English-country-house-like exterior, which are obvious even to the untrained eye (Tillotson 1989: 50–1). Based on Chisholm’s assessment, (p.25) Tillotson (1989: 51, 54) contends that ‘the building presents a lexicon of Indian architecture, but without the grammar’, for it does not adhere to traditional planning principles and is thus hardly a revival; ‘the result is not a fusion but a medley, not a compound but a mixture’. While it may be argued that in terms of conceptual and architectural merit, this project, like several others of its paradigm, may not have achieved much in terms of real adaptation and integration, and merely stopped at being a superficial cohabitation of the European and Indic, the Lakshmi Vilas marks the starting point of grooming definite ideas that eventually undergird the formulation of a new national art. Central to these ideas was the adaptation of European form, practices, and systems to indigenous modes to arrive at new localized reconfigurations. Again, while the Lakshmi Vilas may not have displayed this character of adaptation fully, it marks the beginnings of ideological signposting of art and craft projects, most of which found support at this very site of domestic consumption. As stated earlier, in what would shape up as a continuum of modernity in Baroda, the Figure 1.9 Lakshmi Vilas Palace (northdecade of the 1870s saw the west view), from the album Souvenirfirst phase of (p.26) colonial Glimpses of Baroda, gelatin silver print modernity through Sayajirao’s minority education, the Lakshmi Vilas commission, and Madhavarao’s projects that are discussed further. Native components and ideas merely sat across in Page 19 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India what was a dichotomous framework. However, much like the Bengal Renaissance, a 11

(matt and brown toned), 250 × 348 mm, c. 1940s. ACP: D2008.07.0013(04).

moment of dual alienation Courtesy of the Alkazi Collection of would collapse the two subPhotography. frames to allow an equal association to emerge, and as seen earlier, the raj’s empathetic inclusion of native modes of governance was already hinting at the possibility of new collaborative paradigms. With this discussion another theoretical idea is presented briefly, that by Walter Durost (1932: 10): if material things or objects gain value from their association with ideas or other objects, as opposed to their inherent or independent value, then they become the subject of a collection; to understand this differently, a set or series of objects, when associated with ideas and each other, qualify the whole as a collection. This theoretical criterion to qualify collecting, originally conceived by Durost and also employed by Susan Pearce (1994: 157), becomes a leitmotif in this book. For, one of the aims of this study is to unravel common ideas underlying commissions, acquisitions, and the production of artworks, which linked them in a series or a set in the Gaekwad’s private and institutional domains. The other aim is to demonstrate how these ideas and their material representations dovetailed into a cumulative national project. Hence, the idea underlying the conception and design of the Lakshmi Vilas becomes important to see how it guides other art activities within its private chambers. The hybrid exterior of the Lakshmi Vilas with its underlying ‘idea’ of integration of two systems laid a definite blueprint for the interior chambers and the lifestyle that it supported. It included dining rooms for its European guests, billiards rooms, multiple kitchens, guest apartments, and smaller sitting areas, unlike the old Nazarbag Palace that was suited only to a traditional Indian lifestyle. The choice of materials used was also hybrid; the main construction of the Lakshmi Vilas used indigenous brick and red sandstone, blue trapstone from Poona, and marble from Rajasthan. The interiors used Venetian mosaic-covered flooring for the Durbar Hall, English stained-glass windows, old masters displayed as wall decor, period furniture, and Venetian chandeliers. The maharani’s dressing room displays Indian-style mouldings with pietra dura work, artistic vernacular (p.27) woodwork seen in mirrors, chests, and cupboards alongside what appears to be customized light fittings and a bathtub. A mix of low, Indian-style seating and European furniture emphasize the East–West aesthetic of the palace’s many boudoirs and lounges among distinct spaces such as a billiards room. The presence of English-style furnishings and accessories such as dining and crockery sets to practise English table manners were also seen. A closer examination of the palace and its decor helps one to nuance this reorientation towards English–Indian lifestyles in the context of residential spaces and associated patterns of consumption. Once again, Weeden’s vivid Page 20 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India accounts of the interior and private chambers of the palace conjure a detailed picture of the palace in general, the royal family’s private chambers, and their lifestyle. He also discusses architecture, decor, and the palace collections at length.

Figure 1.10 Dressing Room, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photographs: Manish Chauhan.

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India

Figure 1.11 Two views of Drawing Room, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photographs: Manish Chauhan.

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India First, one presents Weeden’s recapitulation of the decor aspects with reference to the maharani’s drawing room: The chairs, the tables, the china behind the glass doors of the cupboards, the pictures, the statuettes and vase, the whole decoration of this delightful room was so absolutely in harmony with the Maharani herself that one forgot for the moment to wonder at the perfect taste which had laid all Europe and the artistic knowledge of

Figure 1.12 Red Reception Room, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

a hundred friends under contribution to create these pleasing surroundings in the heart of an Eastern principality. (Weeden 1911: 16) The above description underlines Europeanization of royal residential spaces.

Figure 1.13 Billiards Room, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

The second account presents change in living habits. Weeden attests that the breakfast and dinners served at the palace were comparable to meals served in a first-class restaurant in London, such as Prince’s or the Carlton. He records how these meals were prepared by a French cook and supervised by an English maître d’hôtel (Weeden 1911: 29). He also records the presence of two menus as the ladies preferred to have Indian dishes (Weeden 1911: 58). It is important to clarify that the two menus were not planned due to Weeden’s presence at the table; instead, they were a norm. Also with regard to the table arrangements, one sees a blend of European items with traditional Indian supplies. The linen woven in Belfast sits comfortably with silver and gold plates and dishes (Weeden 1911: 30). (p.28) (p.29) (p.30) (p.31) This brings to the fore a conspicuous anglicization of lifestyle, localization of European objects, and their modes of consumption. Thirdly, Weeden’s description of the banqueting hall gives us a sense of how spaces could be read variously as Europeanized or Indianized due to their

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India eclectic decor and adaptation to protocols of Indian rituals and European modes of entertainment. It [the banqueting hall] is a fine, well-proportioned room, brilliantly lit by crystal chandeliers and with a number of old paintings by famous native artists hanging on the walls, illustrating stories from Hindu mythology. The floor had been specially decorated with a long oblong pattern made with coloured sands and gold and silver dust, and behind this large trays of solid silver were placed, one for each of the fifty guests. Silver bowls filled with flowers were placed between each tray, and sticks of burning incense smoked in slender silver holders. Behind the trays were small squares of inlaid wood, on which we took our seats like so many tailors. His Highness and Shivajirao sat at the top of the room and dined off trays of gold, with gold flagons, cups and water bowls. At the other end of the room sat the Brahmins, still in their war-paint, so placed that their own servants could cook their own food on the verandah outside and bring it to them without passing any low-caste person such as myself. (Weeden 1911: 70)

Figure 1.14 A lunch at the Durbar Hall, bromide painting, Maganlal & Sons, Baroda. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India The bromide painting of the Durbar Hall, with its solid silver trays, silver bowls between the trays, and inlaid wood could well be the same banqueting hall of which Weeden was a part. Two pictures of the Durbar Hall tell us how the mixed pedigree of its artworks seen in the vernacular woodwork, crystal chandeliers, mosaic tiles, and bronze sculptures actually mirrored the mixed usage of the space for purely Indian, traditional banquets and rituals as well as European-style meetings that utilized English-

Figure 1.15 The Durbar Hall, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

style furniture. This third account points to the indigenization of what could serve as distinctly European spaces within the Lakshmi Vilas. Added to the above excerpts are notes from Sayajirao’s daily routine that also point towards a hybrid lifestyle. For instance, his morning prayers were followed by a European-style breakfast and engagement (p.32) with Western authors such as Gibbon (Rice 1931: vol. 1, 76–7). He pursued riding, hunting, cricket, and billiards in his leisure time and demonstrated equal ease in a Euro-Indian combination in dressing. We find ourselves looking at Sayajirao in two distinct arenas, the ‘indigenous-princely’ as well as the ‘European-global’. To explain Sayajirao’s dexterous manoeuvring across these two arenas, one revisits the previously cited example of the Siamese monarchy’s transition in the realm of modernity: the refashioning of the public image of the Siamese royalty was a statement to belong to the international community of elites, as well as to claim national leadership as a civilized class (Peleggi 2002: 4, 13, 34). Since Sayajirao was already the head of a native state, this study is less concerned with the idea of claiming political leadership. Instead, it is concerned more with unravelling the links between westernized modes (p.33) of consumption and the idea of positioning one’s self as a part of the global elite fraternity. Sayajirao sought identification from a larger elite pool of members worldwide through membership to it, by adoption of the same set of consumer habits that united them (Peleggi 2002: 34). In the case of Baroda’s maharaja, these consumer habits came to be guided by distinct ideas and resource persons and hence did not remain random or undiscriminating as in the case of the Thai monarchy (Peleggi 2002: 76). Sayajirao’s projection of himself as an anglicized raja also Page 25 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India helped his international and British readers to better identify with him (Codell and Macleod 1998: 5–6). Once again, this reference point of Western modes of consumption did not stop at mere emulation. On the contrary, these consumables were indigenized through their distinctly local contexts of display and usage in the palace. For instance, the banquet hall served more as a heavily (p.34) indigenized space that displayed the works of native artists and could accommodate the hierarchical and ritualistic arrangement for its host, the Brahmins, and other invitees such as Weeden. Thus localization began at the site of private consumption in the interior chambers of the palace, as also noted in the case of the Bangkok royal residences (Peleggi 2002: 11–13, 24, 59–63, 66–7). All the same, the present argument diverges from that presented for the Siamese royalty by demonstrating a distinct aim on the part of the collector: to extend these indigenization processes from the context of the private chambers and lifestyle to formulate a ‘national’ project. 1.8 From the Palace to the Nation

To clarify this point, excerpts from Sayajirao’s speech rendered at the Ahmedabad Industrial Exhibition (1902) are presented. They demonstrate how the idea of Western modes of consumption were redeployed in a larger vision to secure nationwide elevation in standards of living. With reference to the Paris Exposition of 1900, Sayajirao remarked at the Ahmedabad Exhibition: But beyond all this triumph of Man over Nature and her powers, one fact struck me with a curious emphasis—the enormous gulf which separates the European and the native of India in their ideas of comfort. There rose up before me the interior of a typical Indian home, and as I contrasted it with the truly surprising inventions around me, all devoted to that one object, refinement, our much-boasted simplicity seemed bare and meager beyond description. I contrasted those empty rooms—without even a chair or a table—with the luxury, the conveniences, which are the necessaries of a European cottage. My mind went back to the bazaar in my own city of Baroda, the craftsmen working at their old isolated trades with the methods which have sufficed them for centuries without a change, their low irregular houses and their dreamy life, and then contrasted it with all this keen and merciless tide which was sweeping and eddying around me, drawing its needs from a thousand machines and gathering its comforts from the four quarters of the globe. And with the contrast I had a vivid sense of the enormous gulf which we have to bridge over before India can be said to be on the same plane as the European nations…. The appearance of (p.35) our houses is being altered by the revolution which is being made in their furniture. It is slow, for there are many who deplore it and speak of it in tones of regret as a process of denationalization and a

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India fall from simplicity to burdensome and costly luxury. (Quoted from Gaekwad’s 1902 speech, cited in Soares 1933: 39) The maharaja suggests a direct and personal interest in the East–West contrast and in this case favours the usage of the machine, its inventions, and produce. Sayajirao supports the furniture revolution as indicative of a new era of comfortable living. He sees a mark of progress and modernization in the features of a European home and hence advocates their import to suit Indian residential spaces. Moreover, for Sayajirao this aspiration for refinement is not confined to the elite registers of the population; he also sees it as necessary for the humble classes, such as the craftsmen, to achieve a nationwide sense of progress. The usage of the term ‘de-nationalization’ itself suggests that a national picture is envisaged. Sayajirao extends several ideas from his travels and field research towards national progress. Despite being cast here in Peleggi’s mould of a cosmopolite, the maharaja demonstrates how his ideas and experiments are not merely confined to the world of the mobile global elite (Delanty 2012: 2). Instead, they can be transplanted in local, non-elite settings through the agency of the royal cosmopolite and its wide outreach.12 His support for the (Baroda) State Furniture Works, examined in Chapter 3, will fortify this argument and demonstrate how Baroda’s normative elements of national welfare were empirically grounded in real projects and experiments. Here, one sees a conflation of Sayajirao’s roles as a private elite consumer and the head of a native state, and their shared context lends value to the fact that unlike the Siamese monarchy, Sayajirao’s private consumption practices were situated in nation-building projects through able mediation. This is unlike the Thai monarchy, whose mediation of Western genres and practices towards localization was ‘antithetical to nation-building’ due to its confined role within the royal palace (Peleggi 2002: 165). Thus despite representing two collecting practices within the same period and the same setting of a global marketplace, one remained incestuously royal whereas the other (p.36) maintained a fluid exchange of ideas and systems between the royal and public domains.

Part II: A Continuum of Modern Experiments 1.9 Recasting Bourgeois Modernity

As seen in the previous section, a new lifestyle context in the royal palace and its associated ideas of progress translated into a statewide modernization plan. Like the hybrid lifestyle context that was gaining ground across princely India, Baroda State’s modernization should also be read in conjunction with reforms carried out in many princely states, often preceding Baroda. This section essays the reforms introduced in Baroda in the spheres of education; the indigenous crafts economy and industry; the social, cultural, and religious lives of the people; and civic infrastructure. Collated together under the term societal modernization, these projects seemingly appear to be cast in the mould of bourgeois modernity; which in turn is a product of the machine and capitalism in Page 27 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India the West. It consists of cognitive aspects such as a rational, progressive, and secular outlook, as well as components such as a popular government, bureaucratic administration, and market-driven industrial economies, laws, and so on (Gaonkar 2001: 1–2, 16). However, the nuanced applications of these drivers of bourgeois modernity to Baroda’s site will allow one to infer otherwise, that is, how bourgeois modernity is recast in a measured and evaluated fashion to suit native sociocultural systems. 1.9.1 Dewan Madhavarao’s Foundational Contributions

Before we discuss Sayajirao’s contributions to the state, it is important to step back and examine the foundational efforts that were launched by Regent Dewan T. Madhavarao during Sayajirao’s minority. Due to Malharrao’s unstable governance, Baroda was practically bankrupt, state records were ill-maintained, people suffered over-taxation, sanitation conditions were negligible, and diseases and epidemic were rampant. Madhavarao had effectively restructured the administrative and revenue systems at Travancore and Indore as dewan, and hence he was a popular choice to bail Baroda out of its internal misrule and turbulent relations (p.37) with the British. During his appointment, Madhavarao established a central government, civil and criminal justice were reorganized, land assessment was lowered, and a general cleaning-up operation of the city was undertaken (Desai and Clarke 1923; Sergeant 1928: 53). He also made the public works department (PWD) more effective. Under its auspices, the city got a public park, the nucleus of a state library, a vernacular education department, Baroda College, a medical department, and good main streets in the city as well as expanded railway connectivity (Desai and Clarke 1923; Rice 1931: vol. 1, 38; Sergeant 1928: 55–6). He was very obviously transferring British India’s colonial institutions to a princely territory. As per the post-1870 reform track, British appointees were offered the necessary stage to develop administrative machinery that could articulate British power more effectively (Copland 1982: 133). This means that despite the belief in indigenous rulers and their systems, administrative machinery steadily grew in such a way as to make the native prince feel empowered while also recruiting European staff or European-trained specialists (Copland 1982: 133). Madhavarao engaged actively with craftsmen, artists, art commissions, and exhibitions—themes discussed in chapters 2, 3 and 4. Thus, Madhavarao’s portrait as an administrator at the Baroda Court is crucial in trying to identify his simultaneous contributions towards Sayajirao’s collecting practice. In 1881, Sayajirao signed an agreement to preserve Madhavarao’s reforms for up to two years and consequently built on the dewan’s pioneering efforts (Copland 1982: 173). This allows one to revisit British-style curricula devised for Indian princes to ensure that reforms begun during their minorities would continue upon the termination of the regency (Ramusack 2004: 110). It becomes amply clear that Sayajirao operated within the shadow of colonial modernity during the early years of his tenure.

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India 1.9.2 Sayajirao’s Contributions to Administration and Organization of the Khangi Department

Upon assumption of powers as a major in 1881, Sayajirao was tasked to look into the details of administration. He began a systematic process of decentralization and delegation. He had a cabinet of ministers and dedicated departments for various causes of statecraft. The separation of (p.38) executive and judicial functions was carried out in the interest of more effective administration (Desai 1929: 17). The village government or panchayat system was retained and the elective principle was added in 1901 (Desai and Clarke 1923: 126). Representative institutions were also introduced in this system of local selfgovernment in 1904. It must be noted that Travancore and Mysore preceded Baroda in the domain of political modernization: Mysore had an annual representative assembly since 1881 and Travancore had a legislative assembly since 1887 and a representative assembly from 1904 onwards (Markovits 2004: 398). Numerous authors have attested to the impeccable management of finance and resources in Baroda State (Rice 1931: vol. 2, 54–5; Sergeant 1928: 116). This is often attributed to the combination of neat delegation of duties to clerks and departments with an overall check and control of funds (Gaekwad 1989: 92). Sayajirao overhauled the system of finance and established a state reserve. Each department prepared its annual budget independently. A regular audit was established; the portfolios of accountant-general and finance minister were now merged. Furthermore, in 1910, Sayajirao transferred the work related to the state treasury to the then recently founded Bank of Baroda (1908); the state now maintained a minimum balance of five-and-a-half lakh rupees in the bank (Sergeant 1928: 122). In 1909, he actively codified rules of departmental work, especially that of the khangi department. This point is especially relevant for this study as the khangi department managed a large part of Sayajirao’s collecting practice. It engaged with art purchases from the market, organization of art commissions within the palace, and the final logistical support for the movement and rotation of artworks. It worked closely with the dewan and Huzur Cutchery that gave instructions on the collection, purchase, commission, and display of works.13 1.9.3 Sayajirao’s Grass-roots-level Surveys (Swaris)

When Sayajirao was formally crowned as the maharaja, he familiarized himself with the local conditions of Baroda. Tours of the state and district, known as swaris, were undertaken with the dewans, ministers, or Sayajirao’s mentor and friend F.A.H. Elliot. These swaris are also seen as extended internships of British-style education (Ramusack 2004: 133–4). (p.39) Within two years of the commencement of these swaris, in 1883, Elliot compiled Baroda’s first-ever dedicated gazetteer as part of the Bombay Presidency gazetteer series (Elliot 1883).14 As acknowledged by Elliot, in the absence of preceding surveys and publications, the information was put together with the help of various officials Page 29 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India (Elliot 1883: prefatory page). Thus, it may be surmised that the swaris may have played an important role in the collection of data, including those of the local crafts and manufactures. The gazetteer fortifies the role of the swaris in the modernization plan and explains how they helped Sayajirao to make a first-hand survey of the various districts and introduce necessary amenities. From the theoretical standpoint, the swaris may be identified as local surveys or ‘investigative modalities’ to borrow Bernard Cohn’s (1996: 4–5) phrase; the swaris inaugurate the idea of state knowledge being produced and validated by native authorities as opposed to the colonial officers alone. Also, though the swaris may have been British-initiated internships for Indian princes, their continuity and results in Sayajirao’s administration are noteworthy, as probed in Chapter 4. Govindbhai Desai (1929: 170) was appointed the chief officer for the swari of the huzur district on two occasions, that is, 1908 and 1927. He describes Sayajirao’s routine while engaged in the swari as well as the objectives of these tours. Sayajirao undertook these swaris annually for two to four weeks. He gave an audience to eminent members of village communities, district local boards, and municipalities; he visited schools and offices and met with members of local institutions (Desai 1929: 170–1). These surveys culminated in the provision of infrastructure for individual districts and the entire state. Perhaps as a matter of personal interest, during these swaris, Sayajirao devoted time to the ethnological study of various provinces and tribes, with detailed notes on their crafts, land revenue systems, costumes, paraphernalia, and customs as discerned from his Notes on the Famine Tour (Gaekwar 2013 [1901]: 54–5). Chapter 2 will demonstrate how these studies have a strong link with Raja Ravi Varma’s field notes and sketches, several of which were supported by the Baroda court. These early engagements with grass-roots-level surveys explain how Sayajirao assessed internal local contexts that could be elevated through large-scale modernization. A speech rendered at the National Social (p.40) Conference of the Indian National Congress, 1904, reconfirms his beliefs: There is of course some truth in the position that reform must work along lines natural to the country and our national characteristics. There are some features in our environment which are sufficiently powerful to modify the practical applications of any idea, and these account for certain tendencies in national history which persist even through long centuries of foreign influence. It is also true that servile imitation is no reform and is often worse than the original evil. (Gaekwad 1904 speech quoted in Bhagavan 2001: 390) This sets the stage to understand the local elite collector’s ideology and plan to set in motion the project of nationalism. To quote Partha Chatterjee (1986: 30): Page 30 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India Nationalism denied the alleged inferiority of the colonized people; it also asserted that a nation could ‘modernize’ itself while retaining its cultural identity.15 It thus produced a discourse in which, even as it challenged the colonial claim to political domination, it also accepted the very intellectual premise of ‘modernity’ on which colonial domination was based. Gyan Prakash (1999: 3, 6–9, 11) positions himself at a parallel baseline: he sees the colonized elite as imagining and producing the nation through institutions of colonial modernity valued for being scientific. Most importantly, this imagination of the national counts on the possibility of localizing both colonial modernity and science. This Western-colonial premise of modernity first forayed into Sayajirao’s plans due to Madhavarao’s tutelage and reforms and later through Sayajirao’s international travels. While here the ideas of modernity and progress dwell on ‘colonial/Western/Euro-American/post-Enlightenment’ practices and institutions as chief reference points, indigenous institutions were in no way derided or rejected as being non-progressive. In fact, they were noted for their inherently assimilative character. The naive dichotomy of the European and indigenous influences, much like the pastiche effect of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, now comes together in a more analytical manner as part of Sayajirao’s modernization plan and its key projects. (p.41) 1.9.4 Sayajirao’s Sociocultural Reforms

Sayajirao supported a range of sociocultural reforms that went a long way in supporting the overall modernization through significant shifts in belief systems and practices. Through systematic legislation his government introduced a ban on child marriage; he supported divorce and the Widows’ Remarriage Act. He condemned the caste system and his role as a champion of the untouchables was widely known in the public sphere. Sayajirao’s efforts to liberate the lower castes from the authority of the Brahmins were strengthened by his incessant bid to reform the religious sphere. As an example, he engaged Maratha Brahmins to compile an account of the various religious ceremonies performed in the royal family and facilitated a translation of the marriage service (Rice 1931: vol. 2, 198, 203). The Bengal Renaissance, too, cut out external mediators to make rituals and their knowledge more accessible and their participants more inclusive (Panikkar 2007: 138). Reformists fulfilled the many criteria of a renaissance that was raging across the country to formulate alternatives to both tradition and colonial practices: they allowed questioning of tradition and the resulting differences of opinion and they believed in the plurality of Indian tradition and augmented its pool of participants (Panikkar 2007: 133–4, 141). Whereas the royal houses of Cooch Behar, Mysore, Travancore, and Baroda were seen as generally progressive, socioculturally Hyderabad, Gwalior, Udaipur, Kota, Jodhpur, and Patiala were seen as less progressive (Hurley in Ernst and Patil 2007: 144).

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India 1.9.5 Sayajirao’s Contributions to Education

The cause of female and vernacular education espoused by Madhavarao was continued with deep commitment by Sayajirao. In the decade of the 1890s—in colonial India—Baroda became a pioneer in the area of compulsory education (Rice 1931: vol. 2, 63, 225). Along with Travancore, Baroda trumped British India in the educational sphere. Sayajirao viewed education as a primary building block to affect industrial, social, and religious reform and modernization. He is recorded to have said, ‘My earliest convictions, as far as I recall them were concerned with the promotion of education among my people. I had begun to realize that it was the lever—the only lever—by which our country and our people could be moved (p.42) from the inertia of Ages that had weighed them down’ (Mehta 1995: 1). Baroda’s integration of women in basic education and technical schools reminds us of similar projects in Bhopal. Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal (r. 1901–26) made provision for stipends to less privileged girl students and designed curricula to emphasize their dual role as wage earners and homemakers (Hurley in Ernst and Patil 2007: 141). Sayajirao linked the context of education, particularly technical education, with the promotion of the indigenous crafts economy and expansion of the local base of industries (Gaekwad’s 1902 speech cited in Soares 1933: 137). He conducted field research on technical education in Europe and America. The list of technical education centres in Berlin, Paris, Naples, London, and Manchester and his vivid impressions of their strengths bear testimony to this background research (Gaekwad’s 1906 speech cited in Soares 1933: 138–140; Sergeant 1928: 107). He also noted the workshop-factories of craft products that were state enterprises, such as the Sevres Royal Porcelain Factory and the Gobelins Tapestry Factory, and the display of their manufactures at exhibitions held in the Grand and Petit Palais of Paris (Gaekwad’s 1906 speech cited in Soares 1933: 139). In the case of the Casanova Institute at Naples, Sayajirao noted the exchange between craftsmen and apprentices, geared towards the betterment of trade (Gaekwad’s 1906 speech cited in Soares 1933: 139). He made enquiries in London to find ‘lucrative home industries’ for women and women’s colleges during his trip to America in 1906.16 It should be noted alongside that porcelain factories and glassworks were stops for other Indian princes too, but often for personal shopping as seen in the case of the raja of Kapurthala (Jaffer 2006: 24). Students from Baroda were enrolled at the Municipal School of Technology at Manchester (Gaekwad’s 1906 speech cited in Soares 1933: 139–40) among several others such as L’Ecole Municipale D’Horlogerie, Genève,17 the Imperial Institute, London,18 and Columbia University in New York.19 These EuroAmerican models were referenced to institute the Kalabhavan in Baroda; it was established on the grant-in-aid principle as a state concern to diffuse technical knowledge through vernacular medium. It was also established with a view to develop new remunerative industries and salvage old ones; district industrial schools were founded at Petlad, Patan, and Amreli;20 the Amreli School was Page 32 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India noted as one of the most (p.43) successful with artisans (Desai and Clarke 1923: 319). The Gaekwad’s Baroda State Railway Workshop also operated as a training centre in carpentry and smithy (Shah 1942: 80, 143–4). The Chimnabai Women’s Industrial Home was established for women in 1892 to train them in handicrafts (Shah 1942: 80, 143–4). These spaces demonstrate a definite coming together of ‘handi’-crafts as well as mechanized systems of production in locally conducive models. The key guiding ideology for the relocation of crafts to schools and workshops imparting technical education was to enable them to compete commercially and internationally. Sayajirao was against protectionism. In his speech at the Ahmedabad Industrial Exhibition (1902), he critiqued the movement to boycott foreign manufactured cloth as being ineffective: But at the same time I would warn you against some false methods of encouraging industry, such as the movement to use no cloth not produced in the country. The idea is quite unsound so far as any economic results go; and the true remedy for any old industry which needs support is to study the market, find out what is wanted and improve the finish of the work and the design until an increasing demand shows that the right direction has been found. This applies particularly to the artistic trades, such as woodcarving and metal-work, for which the country has been so famous and which it would be a pity to allow to die altogether. (Gaekwad’s 1902 speech quoted in Soares 1933: 63) This speech brings us to our first theoretical explanation of Baroda’s experiments being examples of an alternative modernity. As pointed by Dilip Gaonkar (2001: 6), the consciousness of having become modern, that is, having made the transition from old to new, typically has two versions. The first reveres antiquity that supplies reference points to instruct and measure the new modern, while the second reveres the scientific superiority of the present. While charting his path to modernity, Sayajirao did not make a choice between the two versions, for the scientific superiority of the present had an undeniable colonialBritish import, and relying on antiquity alone for instruction neither provided solutions to participate in a global economic order nor to counter the political might of the ‘present’ scientifically superior overlords. Baroda’s chief statesman was thus targeting a transition from the old to the new with a reasonable mix of antique (p.44) and prevalent indigenous paradigms as well as Western models to yield alternative versions. Also, not everything European/Western travelled into Baroda’s project as a colonial import. Several European models were directly sourced and referenced during the maharaja’s travels. These later examples in field research and their local applications illustrate a circumvention of the colonial and mark the next phase in the continuum of modernization and modernity. In the circumvention of the colonial and formulation of the alternative is an expression of resistance. However, this resistance is not a rejection of European practices as seen in the Bengal School. Instead, it is only a resistance

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India against the British government’s expectation of uncritical emulation on the part of the native maharajas. 1.9.6 Sayajirao’s Contributions to Crafts and Industry

Much like education, the state’s role in Baroda’s industrialization process is especially significant since British India left industrialization initiatives to the private sector (Kooiman 2002: 66). Sayajirao’s contributions to this project may be examined through M.H. Shah’s (1942) publication. Shah (1942: 102–113) studies the augmentation of industry in Baroda State in three periods. The first being 1870–90, the second is from 1890–1905, and the third is from 1905 to 1926. In the first phase, the Baroda government launched new industries such as those of sugar (1884) and cotton (1892) (Shah 1942: 102–8) that were sold to private-sector capitalists. Thus, this first phase was marked by state initiative that was intended to stimulate private-sector entrepreneurs. The second phase was dedicated to the betterment of the crafts economy, growth of small industries, flour and rice mills, cotton ginning units, and so on (Shah 1942: 108). From 1893 to 1896, the Baroda administration carried out an industrial survey to assess the economic potential of the state. This was followed by the establishment of an industrial fund to lend financial support to enterprising individuals (Kooiman 2002: 66). Since the focus of this period was turned away from large-scale enterprise, it was dedicated to the advancement of substitute means that could aid the development of industry. This alternative was the development of technical education as a state concern, and the readying of artisans for industry-oriented work. As an example, large numbers of the Kalabhavan candidates (p.45) found placement as dyers, weavers, and mechanical engineers in mills and factories (Mehta 1992: 163, 165). Chapter 4 will demonstrate the expansion of Baroda’s inventory of locally produced genres in this period, affirming a keen focus on the growth of crafts and ancillary industries. The third phase saw rapid expansion of industries. In 1915, the Department of Trade and Industries was founded with the objective to advise traders, manufacturers, and artisans on potential industrial development plans (Kooiman 2002: 66). Larger enterprises such as the Alembic Chemical Works (1907), a furniture factory (1909), and Shri Sayaji Iron Works (1914) were established (Shah 1942: 109). To reinforce the link between technical education and the promotion of industry, it is important to note that T.K. Gajjar, founder and principal of the Kalabhavan, founded the Alembic Chemical Works. As noted earlier, chemists, dyers, and weavers trained at the Kalabhavan found placements at industries suc as Alembic in Baroda and beyond: Tata Mills in Nagpur, in addition to establishments in Calcutta, Kanpur, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bombay, and Amritsar (Mehta 1992: 146, 157, 165). Another link between technical education and commercial enterprises is underscored through the furniture factory, which was managed by former state scholars who were trained Page 34 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India in Europe as part of the state’s technical education scholarships (Shah 1942: 109). Another excerpt from Sayajirao’s speech illustrates Chatterjee’s (1986: 30) point about the nationalist’s denial of the alleged inferiority of the nation and the potential to rectify its weaknesses and modernize itself, even if by courting colonial systems: Swadeshi-ism covers, to be sure, a great variety of activities, and is capable of a great variety of definitions, but to my mind it is essentially a recognition of our national weakness in matters scientific and industrial and determined effort to overcome it. To acquire economic freedom is the end and aim of swadeshi-ism. And this can only be done by mastering the technique of western industrialism. (Quoted from Gaekwad’s 1908 speech, cited in Soares 1933: 159) In closing, it is important to remind the reader that Sayajirao’s firm belief was to court scientific know-how, mechanization, and industry on the foundation of education. As recorded by Stanley Rice, ‘The Maharaja (p.46) regarded an industrial revival as one of India’s greatest hopes for the future—an industrial revival which should be based upon general education’ (1931: vol. 2, 139). 1.9.7 Sayajirao’s Contributions to Finance and Wealth Accumulation

According to Sayajirao, the next important project in nation-building was finance and wealth accumulation, which he included in what he perceived as an allencompassing idea of industrialism. He expanded this in a speech in 1906 thus: Industrialism, broadly speaking, is the application of scientific invention to the production and distribution of all the articles required by society to satisfy its wants. Inherent in the system and inextricably bound up with it are the scientific methods of finance … So that in my use of the word industrialism I shall be understood to mean not only machinery, the product of scientific invention, but also banking and the other agencies of credit, the products of scientific organization. (Quoted from Gaekwad’s 1908 speech, cited in Soares 1933: 159) This brings us to the point of finance, revenue, and wealth accumulation, which the maharaja regarded as the basis of progress. Sayajirao’s idea of wealth accumulation was closely tied to the building of contingency funds for citizens of all classes and vocations, especially due to his encounter with famine in 1899– 1900 in Baroda. He highlighted India’s absolute dependence on agriculture, which he thought was disadvantageous in a famine situation. He drew on England’s example in the field of manufacturing; the idea of particular cities dedicated to specific industries—Manchester to cotton, Sheffield to cutlery, Glasgow to shipbuilding, and so on—formed the basis of the country’s prosperity. ‘With their wealth she is able to buy her food from abroad and disregard rains Page 35 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India and droughts, good season or bad season’ (quoted from Gaekwad’s 1901 speech, cited in Soares 1933: 9–10). On the occasion of the opening of the Bank of Baroda (1908), Sayajirao clarified how the labourer/artisan, with the help of modern work methods, could accumulate wealth that would make shifting of foodstuffs possible in the event of a famine (Gaekwad’s 1908 speech cited in Soares 1933: 162). Madhavarao’s extensive notes on statecraft, too, discussed concepts of (p.47) wealth and food security for the citizens; he saw that the princely state’s limited land for cultivation could not meet the needs of a growing population and hence people had to shift towards manufacturing (Madhava Rao 1881: Chapter XXXI, Fundamental Principles 192–3, 201). In the same vein, Sayajirao also saw the need to expand manufacturing for wealth creation that would indirectly help to cultivate a demand for art and other industries, which, according to him, depended on leisure and wealth (Gaekwad’s 1902 speech cited in Soares 1933: 64–5). ‘Before we have a large demand at home for the arts we must produce the wealth to support them, and we shall never have that wealth until we have an economic system on a much broader basis than our present limited industry’, clarified the Gaekwad at the Ahmedabad Industrial Exhibition (1902) (Gaekwad’s 1902 speech cited in Soares 1933: 64–5). Moreover, he also saw wealth as a means of placing the lower classes in the context of the new ‘agencies of culture such as schools, and colleges, libraries, museums, art galleries, hospitals, etc.’ (quoted from Gaekwad’s 1908 speech, cited in Soares 1933: 162). Hence, to avail of education, recreation, and healthcare, the citizens needed wealth and the reverse was also true in his opinion—to find support and patronage for these agencies, the state needed wealthy individuals. Thus finance and wealth accumulation, regarded as products of scientific organization, were seen as crucial to the welfare of the people. The above discussions have reflected on those Euro-American systems or ideas that Sayajirao was keen to import for India’s development, namely scientific know-how, mechanization, industry, ideas of finance, and wealth accumulation. However, bearing in mind the dual referents in the maharaja’s version of alternative modernity, it is imperative to look beyond the mould of bourgeois modernity to appreciate the maharaja’s understanding of indigenous practices. Knowledge of indigenous systems led him to emphasize the need to ‘adapt’ instead of ‘emulate’. In the context of the Indian textile industry, he highlighted how ‘with intelligent adaptation of improved methods’ Indian crafts and manufactures could compete with European products (Gaekwad cited in Soares 1933: 119–20). To clarify this point further, it might be useful to reference his speech at the Calcutta Industrial Exhibition (1906) wherein he urges nationalist crusaders to create large-scale industries, but not at the cost of eradication of the vocations (p.48) of hereditary artisans, who he saw as a larger portion of India’s industrial population vis-à-vis mill and factory workers and agriculturists (Gaekwad cited in Soares 1933: 126–7). Evidently, Sayajirao did not favour a fullPage 36 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India scale industrialization plan, that is, one that would obliterate the artisan. Both the elements of Western science and antiquated sources of reference were consciously redeemed in the Baroda project. The following case study demonstrates Sayajirao and Baroda State administration’s sensitivity towards indigenous material culture and its associated traditions. 1.10 Case Study of the Kansaras of Visnagar

The foundational ideology that guided the aforementioned projects is illustrated in this concluding example that deals with hereditary craftsmen, that is, the kansaras (coppersmiths) of Visnagar. During the famine of 1899–1900, as per Govindbhai Desai’s account (1929), the state engaged closely with artisans, as it did with all other subjects for relief work. Sayajirao advanced rupees 5,000 to start an aluminium factory for the kansaras who constituted a majority in Visnagar. Their occupation of making and selling utensils was severely affected during the famine as sales dipped (Desai 1929: 138). Desai records his active engagement with the creation of an alternative mode of income for the kansaras. He records: With the literature and instructions obtained for me by the Dewan Saheb Madhavarao from Mr. (afterwards Sir) Alfred Chatterton, I started a small factory with a borrowed lathe and other tools, in which about 50 people of this artisan class were given wages. Thalis, lotas and other utensils of domestic use were manufactured and sold at cost price. No loss was made and when it was time for closing the small factory, the advance of Rs 5,000 from Government was fully returned to the treasury. (Desai 1929: 138) It is recorded that initially the artisans resisted working in a different medium but relented later. Similar projects were undertaken later for the carpenters and blacksmiths of Shiyanagar and the weavers of Amreli (Gaekwar 2013 [1901]: 54– 5). This example brings together all the different threads of the modernization plan envisaged by Sayajirao. It demonstrates how new scientific know-how and mechanization are embraced in the form of lathes and tools (p.49) to produce aluminium utensils that can generate revenue for traditional utensil-makers in a famine situation. It becomes an alternative skill set and revenue-generating solution for hereditary craftsmen who continue to have a sense of working in a caste-based vocation in a small factory-style workshop. Moreover, it also shows the gradual shift in sociocultural ideas as the hereditary craftsmen agree to work with new materials and partner new professionals. Additionally, Sayajirao acknowledges that traditional, long-standing media of brass and copper used for utensils since ancient times cannot be replaced by ‘the cheap enameled ironware from Europe’; hence, he welcomes the development of the aluminium industry that is more acceptable by the craftsmen and consumers (Gaekwad’s 1906 speech cited in Soares 1933: 123).21 The remaining chapters will Page 37 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India demonstrate how the ideas of ‘localization’ reflected in this experiment with the Visnagar kansaras are employed in the larger plan of national welfare and selfreliance, both of which require scientific know-how, new methods, new materials, new training and production centres, and new partners in the form of native or European art instructors and engineers to enable the formulation of a new national art that forged its own identity. 1.11 A Nationalist and a Dissenter

In 1908, Baroda’s rapid progress was a subject of discussion at the British Parliament and when Secretary of State John Morley was asked if he would replicate similar reforms in other states and British India, the answer was that replication might be construed as interference and hence not possible (Morley cited in Bhagavan 2001: 392). Moreover, if Baroda’s reforms were replicated, then it meant giving value to the efforts of a native prince and administration, which in the end would again defeat the purpose of colonial presence and domination, that is, to bring a civilizing mission and development to the colony (Bhagavan 2001: 392–3). However, what this correspondence underlines is that there was an active or tacit acceptance of a big and successful reform story underway in Baroda; this made Sayajirao and Baroda a threat to the raj and its ideology of the rule of difference. Furthermore, Sayajirao was hailed by nationalists such as the economist R.C. Dutt for displaying one of the bestgoverned states, even better than British India (Dutt 1950a: 259; (p.50) Sergeant 1928: 116). This perception augmented Sayajirao’s clout among those princes and Congress leaders who were seen as potential candidates to govern an independent India. Manu Bhagavan’s (2001) reading of mimicry and resistance in Sayajirao’s reforms is useful to this plot. Even if Western reforms were uncritically mimicked in the early years, it was to devise a native project of development that resonated with the nationalists (Bhagavan 2001, 2002). Additionally, Bhagavan (2001) reads an element of resistance in Baroda’s projects. The imagination of alternative models, which were neither wholly traditional nor entirely British (such as the Kalabhavan and the Visnagar experiment), may be regarded as expressions that were beyond colonialism as well as modernity. Once again, when seen in a continuum, Baroda’s exemplary development model, whether mimicked in parts (especially during Madhavarao’s tenure) or alternative, was conspicuous at a pan-Indian level. Given the fact that it gained roots in a relatively more private sphere22 as compared to directly ruled British India, nationalists laid claim to it as a proxy national model. Moreover, Sayajirao’s ideas of reform transcended the boundaries of princely Baroda to become assimilative of British India and thereby give value to the idea of nationalism. The maharaja’s own aspirations to peg alternative state experiments in a national strategy are evident in his 1904 speech rendered at the National Social Conference, ‘It is also true that servile imitation is no reform and is often worse than the original evil. But the great truth behind the phrase Page 38 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India is, that it is the general advance of nation which is the aim of the reform: that only is national reform which subserves national interests’ (quoted from Gaekwad’s 1904 speech, cited in Bhagavan 2001: 390). It may be added here that in terms of a political front, too, the Gaekwad’s brand of coalition was thoroughly assimilative as it regrouped moderates and extremists, thereby containing differences and factionalism (Bhagavan 2002: 939). This author’s examination of Baroda’s reforms does not reveal rejection or resistance. They appear to imbibe colonial and Western ideas and institutions effortlessly, though bearing in mind locally viable results. Similarly, whether the British read an expression of resistance in Baroda State’s localized projects, or they merely read aggressive reform cannot be known. Perhaps much like the heterogeneous picture of the raj’s motives and styles of operation, different segments of British officials read the Baroda story (p.51) differently. Whatever their varying interpretations, the element of threat posed by a ‘progressive Baroda’ was perceived uniformly. And since this resistance and/or reform could not be attacked directly, Sayajirao was frequently accused of being a dissenter of British rule. A letter to Lord Reay in 1897 clearly marks Sayajirao’s belief in his own choice of durbaris, native modes of administration, institutions, and systems, and his own ideas of progress (Gaekwad quoted in Copland 1982: 189). This choice demonstrates that despite British appointees in his formative years, the young ruler had the panache to drive the project of reform on his own terms. Sayajirao admitted to his reforms’ model being a highly original one and underlined the raj’s dubious stance towards progress in the native states in his communications: The effect of British overrule has been to weaken the old bases of power without satisfactorily replacing them. To take some details; the ease with which the Princes are made and unmade … or are compelled temporarily to transfer their powers to the Political Officer and rarely to their own servants; the small respect shown to their last wishes and dispositions; the manner in which their servants are rewarded with titles without the least reference to the Government which employs them…. Then there is the unsympathetic attitude of some Political Officers towards attempts at progress on original lines, which leads people to think that solid progress is not zealously favoured, but that while bad copies of British models will be tolerated, even a slight departure from them is at times looked upon somewhat as an act of presumption to be discouraged. (Gaekwad quoted in Copland 1982: 189) Ian Copland (1982: 189) highlights the above letter as ‘the first articulate critique of paramountcy by an Indian prince’ that ‘made the Gaekwar notorious in official circles’.

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India It remains known that groups of early nationalists, particularly from the Western Presidency, the Indian National Congress, and the Nationalist Press looked up to Sayajirao for leadership and active support (Kooiman 2002: 19; Rice 1931: vol. 2, 5). He interacted with groups of moderate and extremist nationalists: M.G. Ranade, R.C. Dutt, Madame Cama, Krishnavarma, Narasinhbhai Patel, Bipin Chandra Pal, and Aurobindo Ghose (Bhagavan 2002: 939). He was a close friend of the famous Poona circle of nationalists, namely Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, (p.52) and Veer Savarkar. In the first decade of the 1900s, some members of this group led an extremist nationalist movement that was inspired by the then professor at Baroda College, Aurobindo Ghose (1892–1906). Given Ghose’s base in Baroda and the state’s porous borders, the group rallied there and sought Sayajirao’s support. However, this group’s focus on Hindu patriotism estranged Sayajirao from it. Fatesinghrao Gaekwad, the maharaja’s grandson, paints Sayajirao’s ‘nationalist’ portrait in more radical tones. According to Fatesinghrao (1989: 183), Ghose was appointed as the maharaja’s private secretary, confidante, and trusted aide, and much later followed his formal appointment as vice principal of the Baroda College. Though Sayajirao persuaded Ghose to stay on in Baroda, the latter departed sensing the tensions between Sayajirao and the British administration, (Gaekwad 1989: 207). The famous Delhi Durbar incident (1911) that has enjoyed several interpretations over the years is recorded by Fatesinghrao as Sayajirao’s deliberate act of disrespect towards the sovereign authority. According to Fatesinghrao, the dewan sir V.T. Krishnamachary records that Sayajirao admitted to intentionally violating the dress code and the code for the ceremonial homage, wherein he is said to have turned his back on the British sovereign ‘within less than the designated distance’ (Gaekwad 1989: x; Ramusack 2004: 124). Disrespecting the ceremonial protocol may have been an answer to the Delhi Durbar of 1902 in which his questioning of durbar ceremonials such as the elephant procession was discouraged (Bhagavan 2001: 63–5). Once again, he expressed anguish at the farcical empowerment of native princes by writing in to art advisor M.H. Spielmann, ‘One dare not ask questions on ceremonies in the framing of which we had no choice’ (Gaekwad’s letter to M.H. Spielmann cited in Sergeant 1928: 137–8). Sayajirao was known to be a financial contributor to the national cause along with other donor princes of Kolhapur, Junagadh, and Gondal, and the recipients included eminent nationalists Pherozeshah Mehta and Dadabhai Naoroji (Copland 1982: 188). His meetings with nationalists such as Madame Cama and Krishnavarma are widely discussed. Though the maharaja admitted to these meetings with the secretary of state for India, Lord Crewe, in London in July 1911, he emphasized his innocence (Bhagavan 2001: 396–7). Chitpavan Brahmins were viewed as (p.53) fierce nationalists and their large numbers along with other expatriate Deccani Brahmins in the official Baroda staff often brought Baroda in the ambit of suspicion for seditious activities (Copland 1982: Page 40 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India 28, 233). The Deccani Brahmins outnumbered the Gujarati staff as their ratio stood at 6:1, but this may have been due to the larger numbers of skilled bureaucrats required in durbari governments (Copland 1982: 28, 233). Sayajirao fiercely advocated people’s participation in the government and autonomy for the native princes. For these purposes, he looked up to the Indian National Congress and gained from the resolutions passed by it (Kooiman 2002: 19). In this context of self-rule and self-reliance, Rice (1931: vol. 2, 5) remarks, ‘His strong advocacy of national expression and self-help in the sphere of internal progress, (which) caused the Nationalist Press to court Sayajirao as their “special friend”.’ Sayajirao’s crusade for nationalism may also be discerned in his support to Gandhi’s swadeshi movement (Kooiman 2002: 113, 115), though the maharaja did not agree with its protectionist approach. We have noted how he had alternative ideas in favour of improvement of indigenous manufactures that could become comparable with their foreign counterparts. From 1895, the CID alerted the political department about the usage of Baroda as a base by the Poona Brahmin nationalists and the maharaja. Post 1911, he was watched by the foreign department and CID, Scotland Yard surveillance (Bhagavan 2001: 403; Copland 1982: 234; Hardiman in Jeffrey 1978: 125). The first formal notice for seditious activities came from the viceroy in 1909 (Bhagavan 2001: 395). An attempted assassination of Lord Minto in Ahmedabad was traced back to Baroda for its conception (The Englishman cited in Copland 1978; Robb and Taylor 1979: 33, 46). Once again, in November 1911, the CID found seditious literature from presses inside Baroda, some of which were headed by district commissioners in Baroda’s government (Copland 1982: 235). To ensure enthronement, Sayajirao had to pass a strict anti-sedition legislation within the stipulated 12-month period as ordered by the viceroy (Copland 1982: 235). Though again, Fatesinghrao emphasizes how Sayajirao only transferred the officers to lesser positions to reprimand them! (Gaekwad 1989: 233–7). Considering that there were several registers of nationalist crusaders and equally diverse nationalist ideas, it becomes important to identify Sayajirao’s genre of nationalism. Baroda saw a mix of extremist Hindu (p.54) and Gandhian nationalists and both laid claim to Sayajirao as their leader. However, one concludes that Sayajirao was essentially a Congressman, a moderate nationalist, and one who supported Gandhi’s movement in many ways. Bhagavan’s thorough analysis of university education in Baroda sees a ring of an assimilative nationalism that was never allowed to be led by extremist forces. Since it was also inclusive to the point of containing a splintering of the national coalition, it was often misread as entertaining extreme Hindu forces. Sayajirao’s many speeches (1902, 1906, and 1908) especially illuminate the idea of ‘swadeshi-ism’, as he referenced nationalism (Gaekwad quoted in Soares 1933). Swadeshi-ism was a holistic plan with the development of education, scientific know-how, mechanization, industry, and finance as its various projects, each supporting the other (Gaekwad’s 1908 speech cited in Soares 1933: 159; Rice Page 41 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India 1931: vol. 2, 139).23 The many individual projects and excerpts from Sayajirao’s speeches that are examined in this chapter point to an inclusive idea of national welfare as being the maharaja’s prime concern. And when analysed at a deeper level, the Delhi Durbar incident and the finding of seditious literature (1909–11) were only immediate triggers to weaken a progressive maharaja leaning heavily towards self-rule. As Bhagavan tells us, it was actually the mimicked modernity of the previous decade—that is, 1890s onwards—that was a real threat to the British raj and that led to the raj’s profiling of Sayajirao as a seditionist. When read in conjunction with Ajay Sinha’s profiling of the maharaja as toeing the line of pragmaticism in his many projects,24 Sayajirao’s stance as a moderate nationalist becomes clearer. The maharaja avowedly put the nation before the princely states in a key correspondence with the Aga Khan, reminding us of his inclusive approach (Bhagavan 2001: 394). His genre of nationalism was open to world cultures and practices and inclusive of local communities, and therein lies his nationalism of moderation and cosmopolitanism of pragmaticism. 1.12 Royal Means, Colonial Structures, and National Ends

This chapter situates the protagonist Maharaja Sayajirao in multiple locales: the royal palace, Baroda State, the nation, and the virtual world of the global elite. It utilizes the maharaja’s own education, ideas, speeches, and (p.55) projects to inter-calibrate these various domains in Baroda-based projects that ranged from architecture to healthcare, education, crafts, and other institutions. These projects point to the openness with which Sayajirao included ideas and systems from diverse geopolitical cultures to set the stage for more cosmopolitan practices to follow. The thrust of the chapter keeps returning to the premise that the modernization of Baroda State as well as the entire nation was part of the maharaja’s plan, and despite the acceptance of modern experiments from the Euro-American world, he appreciated the relevance of indigenous practices. Thus this chapter puts in place the central thread of this book neatly: that modernity and indigenism did not share an oblique relationship. Instead, they could come together in alternative experiments that were viable not just for Baroda but for nationwide progress and reform. Also, the force and facilitator for the maharaja’s wide referencing of European and American models is, in large part, seen in his own travels, fieldwork, and advisors vis-à-vis the prevalent colonial models within India. The strategic advances of Baroda may be celebrated as highly original but their independence should not be taken for granted, especially given the presence of the British paramountcy that scrutinized the royal family and the state’s many developments, making them both accountable to the British government. This negotiation of local and national interests within a predominantly British colonial landscape also reminds us of the fierce contestations and mutually accepted collaborations between native agents and British officials. That among its many priority social, economic, and political concerns, a self-styled princely state should have also utilized its private royal chambers and the many activities Page 42 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India therein to rearticulate its cultural institutions and identity build the case for the remaining book. This chapter helps to conclude that Sayajirao’s vision pitched for a holistic reform plan for Baroda. His strategies were comprehensive and simultaneous, so as to ensure that every frame of development and welfare only supported and furthered the next. New belief systems and social practices supported by education prepared the state for new projects and experiments in industry and wealth management. The simultaneity of the political and cultural processes can be read in particular examples such as the founding of technical schools through direct field research in Europe and the plugging of local crafts in industry. As a ruling political elite (p.56) Sayajirao’s cultural consciousness was very much a part of his national consciousness, which was systematically building and crystallizing itself. Moreover, Baroda’s position as a princely private domain and Sayajirao’s nationalist leanings led to the claiming of its reforms’ model for nationwide elevation. Since the rest of this book signposts nationalism and modernity as the guiding ideologies for Baroda’s art–craft paradigm, this chapter serves well as the primary block. Ideologies are seen as evolving across different stages in Baroda’s modernization story: Dewan T. Madhavarao as regent shows immense regard for colonial rule in his documented lessons for a minor Sayajirao; societal modernization in Baroda is pursued as a colonial project that rests on European tenets; with the arrival of Sayajirao as a major prince, one hears of the aspiration to depart from strictly colonial models; and during his tenure one sees a refashioning of bourgeois institutions and ideas to suit the local sociocultural fabric, as seen in the experiment of linking a polytechnic with artisans and industry. This analysis across a continuum brings to the fore the central thrust of the Gaekwad’s ideology, which is the acceptance of the inherently adaptable and relevant nature of indigenous practices that could be adapted to Euro-modern techniques. Theoretically, this clarifies the conundrum presented by Partha Chatterjee between colonial means and national ends, that is, the postEnlightenment colonial justificatory structures indeed provide the wherewithal to expand the possibilities of national development, which through its localized identity, partializes the dominant colonial-Western reference frame. This sets the stage to present Sayajirao’s formulation of practices, which are at once effective locally and yet reconfigured to suit Western Enlightenment standards of modernity and progress. The first conclusion presents an understanding of Sayajirao’s genre of nationalism as representing an ‘indigenous or alternative modernity’. Secondly, his systematic elucidation of ideas through speeches and biographies profile him as an ideologue of nationalism. Thirdly, this chapter’s close examination of Sayajirao’s Euro-modern sources of reference as highlighted in his biographies25 and seen through his international travels and notes, and his equally keen engagement with local surveys, position him as a global cosmopolite who forged a national identity in a colonial space. This Page 43 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India affirms Carol Breckenridge’s (1989: 196) standpoint, also adopted by Peleggi (2002: 13, 144), that there was no (p.57) contraposition between globalization and the formulation of national identities. Sayajirao’s project of nationalism was the story of a ‘localized modernity and a native protagonist’ in a global playfield, as will be demonstrated in the remaining chapters. This brings us to our fourth conclusion that Sayajirao created a shared space between his roles as a private elite consumer and head of state; his projects dedicated to nationalism and modernity benefited of this vortex as they drew on ideas and practices from the private chambers of the palace and were simultaneously pegged in the institutional domains outside. This also means that Sayajirao’s roles as an anglicized consumer, exotic oriental raja, and enlightened reformer, conflated within this single vortex to exchange ideas and facilitate projects. For instance, the furniture revolution as an idea gained from the Western modes of consumption within the palace and Sayajirao’s international travels. It translated into an institutional project in the form of the State Furniture Works, which not only catered to a wide client base but also found principal support through the palace’s patronage. This point creates a firm ground to situate the key concern of this book: why private consumption and collecting practice become the nucleus to understand the creation of Baroda’s institutional projects and consequently a new national art. Overall, this chapter sets the stage to anchor both the research questions raised in this book as well as the answers it seeks from various sources. Notes:

(1.) Since ‘Gaekwad’ was originally lent as a title name to one Nandaji (grandfather of Damaji), it continues to be used with an article ‘the’ to indicate a title. The etymological root of Gaekwad may be traced to gai (cow) and kavad (door) since Nandaji released cattle through the side door of a fort in Bhor State. Dick Kooiman clarifies that although Gaekwad is often referred to as ‘the Gaekwad’, it is a surname and not a title or designation. However, several other authors of princely India, including myself, write ‘the Gaekwad’ (Kooiman 2002: 37; Sergeant 1928: 1). (2.) The Peshwas were another Maratha dynasty with their political seat in Poona. The Maratha Confederacy was made up of the raja of Satara, the Peshwas in Poona, and five other military entrepreneurs at Gwalior, Indore, Ujjain, Nagpur, and Baroda (Ramusack 2004: 35). (3.) Dick Kooiman (2002: 15) explains that in return for the princes’ loyalty to British rule, adoption sanads were issued by the British Crown. These sanads or deeds guaranteed the princes’ perpetuation of rule in accordance with their laws of succession. As Ramusack (2004: 52) explains, ‘Sanads were certificates or

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India testimonials of protection or recognition that the British unilaterally extended much as the Mughal emperors dispensed farmans’. (4.) The upadhyaya served the house of Gaekwad (Baroda), Scindia (Gwalior), Holkar (Indore), and Rana (Nepal). These mostly Maratha royal households were connected through matrimonial ties. (5.) Madhavarao’s leanings towards British rule in India are evident throughout Minor Hints (1881), which consists of lessons he wrote for Sayajirao on management of the palace and the state. With all the unavoidable disadvantages of being a foreign government, it is really far more powerful and far more durable than any that had preceded it. Why? Mainly because its first principle is to promote the happiness of the people as a whole. Here and there the British Government may have made errors, may have failed in this respect, may have exposed itself to adverse criticism. Yet on the whole, I feel, and every thoughtful man must feel, that India cannot have any other better or even an equally good Government. Such a feeling is one of the strongest securities for the durability of the British Government. So long as such a feeling lasts, the British Government in India may be expected to last as it is most desirable it should. Indeed, it is not possible to assign any limit to the durability of the British Empire in India, because British principles and institutions are such that the grand principle which is our subject to-day will never be neglected or set aside. On the contrary it will be more and more effectually carried out, under an elevated sense of national duty and of national interest on the one hand, and under the pressure of popular wishes and aspirations on the other. (Madhava Rao 1881: Chapter XXV, Fundamental Principles 109, 108–9). (6.) These contrasting styles of mentoring and their ideologies could be a partial explanation for Sayajirao’s fallout with Madhavarao upon becoming a major prince and his continued friendship with Elliot in later years. According to Rice, Madhavarao found it difficult to accept the new course of things in the state upon Sayajirao’s appointment as monarch. Especially in matters of law, they diverged greatly. Madhavarao omitted codification of laws in his programme as he relied on British models; in contrast, Sayajirao saw the native state in a far stronger position to craft laws to suit native customs and needs (‘Selected Letters’ cited in Rice 1931: vol. I, 55). (7.) The Morley–Minto Reforms package of 1909 reaffirmed the role of political officers as interpreters of the princes’ aspirations, and they urged the political agents not to press the durbars into imitating Western models. The emphasis on growth from within the indigenous systems was immense (Copland 1928: 126, 238–9). Page 45 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India (8.) The concept of dual alienation in the context of the Renaissance is coined by Amilcar Cabral cited in Panikkar (2007: 18). (9.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 16, Daftar 23, File 6: ‘Khāṇgi Department: Royal Family: Photographers, Artists (1876–1908)’: Letter 532; From: P.I. Cox, 22 August 1896; To: (probably) Dewan Srinivasa Raghavaiyangar; Memo signed by Dewan Srinivasa Raghavaiyangar, 13 April 1897. (10.) For a detailed discussion of the history of the Indo-Saracenic style, its indigenous architectural precedents, and its application to imperial and princely projects, see Thomas Metcalf (1989). (11.) The phrase is elaborated further in the chapter (Panikkar 2007: 18). (12.) For further reading on the idea of cosmopolitanism in Sayajirao and Baroda State’s projects, read Maholay-Jaradi (2015). (13.) From the entire range of archival data referenced for this book, one can delineate the following points: When Sayajirao began to travel to Europe actively, he sourced artefacts and decor items from the exhibitions and open market with the help of commercial agents and advisors. Officers from the Baroda court travelled with Sayajirao and corresponded on the proposed acquisitions with the dewan’s office in Baroda. This was primarily to manage the acquisition budget and disburse payments (from the bank account in Bombay) to the concerned agents, packers, movers, and artists. Receipts in archival files show that funds from the Bank of Baroda were utilized to pay packers and movers engaged for movement and representation of artworks at exhibitions. Furthermore, as may have been the norm to forward all necessary correspondence to the khangi office, the dewan forwards copies of letters from Europe to the khangi karbhari, who was responsible for the final receipt of articles. The communication systems associated with collecting were impeccably managed at the Baroda court. See GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 17, Daftar 29, File 17: ‘Europe Trips: Purchase of Articles in Europe (1892)’; Section 65, Daftar 111, 112: Exhibitions; and several other files at the Huzur Political Office, which are referred to for this study. Ian Copland clarifies the dewan to be the key durbari (court) official. He was also referred to as the karbhari in western India. As such, he headed the revenue department but was engaged with the day-to-day happenings of the state and was accountable to the ruler for everything (Copland 1982: 29). In the case of Baroda, all ministers were referred to as karbharis; the dewans were also referred to as karbharis, but until when the title remains in use is unclear. Additionally, whether the dewan was also the ‘khangi’ karbhari remains unverified (Elliot 1883: 276, 288).

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India (14.) Independent gazetteers for the Baroda district were published only from 1918 onwards at the behest of Govindbhai Desai (1929: 192). (15.) A similar denial of inferiority among the people of the non-West may be read in Mirza Abu Taleb’s attitude. Mirza Abu Taleb, a minor Indian aristocrat who had travelled across Asia and Africa, visited England in 1797. He critically engaged with European scientific traditions and compared them against indigenous ones. Thus he did not attribute all of modernity and science to Europe (Khair 2001: 5). (16.) ‘Two Scholarships Given by Gaekwar’, in Telegram Portland, 13 July 1906; referred to at: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Archives. (17.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 84, Daftar 471, File 20: ‘Education Department: Europe Students’: Archival p. 22; Section 84, Daftar 470, File 10: ‘Education Department: Europe Students’: Letter 7684; From: Manibhai Jasbhai, Huzur Cutchery, Baroda, 23 May 1893; To: Messrs Thomas Cook & Sons, Bombay; Copy sent to: T.K. Gajjar, Kalabhavan; Section 84, Daftar 470, File 6: ‘Education Department: Europe Students’: Memo of Agreement Entered into Between the Government of H.H. the Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda on the One Part & Madhavarao Ranchhodrai Kushaldas on the Other Part, 28 April 1893. (18.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 84, Daftar 470, File 9: ‘Education Department: Europe Students’: Memo Signed by T.S. Tait, Principal, Baroda College Office, 29 November 1900: Letter 4988; From: Huzur Cutchery, Baroda, 9 January 1901; To: Secretary and Treasurer, Bank of Bombay. (19.) One Hardit Singh was placed at Columbia University to further his training in applied chemistry. See ‘Two Scholarships Given by Gaekwar’, 1906. (20.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section: 65, Daftar 112, File 11: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions Held in the Baroda State (1914–1928)’: A Short Account of the Kalabhavan, Baroda, Published on the Occasion of the Visit of Lord Willingdon, Governor of Bombay, 24 February 1917, Lakshmi Vilas Press, Baroda. (21.) Since this speech was delivered in 1906, it may not recount the Visnagar episode in particular but is still valid to show Sayajirao’s perspective on alteration of traditional crafts and materials. (22.) Manu Bhagavan bases his explanation of the princely state as a private sphere on Tanika Sarkar and Partha Chatterjee’s idea of the home that was perceived as a private domestic space or the site of nationalist imaginaries by Indian male nationalists. This was a result of strong European domination seen in the public life and civil society. Thus, only the home was left as a conceptual space wherein nationalist Bengali men enjoyed a sense of autonomy and sovereignty (Sarkar and Chatterjee cited in Bhagavan 2002: 919). Page 47 of 48

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Manoeuvring Baroda and the Nation in British India (23.) The simultaneity of various projects is also emphasized in Madhavarao’s tutelage to Sayajirao in Madhava Rao 1881: Chapter XXVI, Fundamental Principles 150. (24.) See Ajay Sinha’s essay in Maholay-Jaradi (2015). (25.) Biographies of Sergeant (1928), Rice (1931), and Tottenham (1934) hold a colonial view in that they praise Sayajirao for his reforms and ideal and progressive state, while attributing these to imperial benefits and thereby underlining the necessity of the colonial rule (Bhagavan 2001: 387).

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Collecting the High Arts

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

Collecting the High Arts From Consumption to Informed Collecting Priya Maholay-Jaradi

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords This chapter is set against a backdrop of European itinerant artists, British-run art schools, and growing tastes in favour of highly naturalistic and scientific European genres of academic portraiture and salon sculpture in nineteenthcentury India. Groomed by these informal and institutional colonial contexts of art education, Sayajirao dialogues with an international network of advisors and artists to acquire European artworks. Simultaneously, through commissions to native and European practitioners, he indigenizes these European visual arts with the past and living vernacular and transnational aesthetic inputs. Their democratic cross-referencing leads to an assimilative, cosmopolitan style; the latter’s prolific output as continuous series of artworks and their high visibility at international exhibitions consolidate them as an independent native genre that is simultaneously claimed as India’s new national high art. Through its links with ideas of indigenization, cosmopolitanism, and nationalism, the maharaja’s consumption of the high arts qualifies as a collecting practice. Keywords:   academic oil portrait, salon sculpture, art school, genre subjects, itinerant artists, lifestyle context, prestige consumption, localization, indigenous modernity, cosmopolitanism

This chapter centres on Maharaja Sayajirao’s consumption of European genres such as academic portraits, salon sculptures, and copies of European history painting. Instead of showing a naive enchantment towards these new realistic works, he is seen as systematically courting Western techniques and styles to localize them for the creation of a new ‘national high art’. Through European, Page 1 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts vernacular, and transnational aesthetic inputs by artists and the maharaja, Baroda’s high-art renditions move beyond localization to achieve a cosmopolitan aesthetic. This indigenization and eventual cosmopolitanism are especially exemplified in the mythological painting series of Raja Ravi Varma and genre subjects in salon sculpture by Augusto Felici and Fanindranath Bose. Through these definite examples, this chapter presents a full-fledged experiment in the making of an inclusive national art, much before the arrival of the revivalist Abanindranath Tagore-led Bengal School, which is conventionally viewed as the first movement to aspire to a swadeshi ideology and aesthetic. Secondly, this chapter claims that the acquisition processes involved in the making of these European-style collections are far from random. They are well guided by various contexts such as art schools, exhibitions, catalogues, and reproductions that groom Sayajirao’s gaze and that of his artists. The chapter adopts Arjun Appadurai’s (1986) framework of the ‘social life of things’ to organize the content along two categories, namely the genre history and the individual history of artworks. Appadurai (p.63) demonstrates how objects circulate through space and time to acquire meaning and value. He acknowledges that it is essentially human agency that encodes an object with meaning; he also sees that the objects travel on a trajectory and acquire meanings through their form, use, and the overall journey they make (Appadurai 1986: 5). Here Appadurai (1986: 34) formulates two categories: the social history of things that are essentially long-term trajectories/life stories of an entire category or class and the cultural biography of things that refers to the short-term trajectories/life stories occupied by individual objects, which in turn belong to the larger category or class. In accordance, the historical development of portraiture and sculpture is explained first. Against this larger backdrop, archival data is presented in the form of acquisition histories of individual artworks, which also include information on artists, organization of commissions, and the contracts and recommendations involved therein. This structure also converges with established methodologies that study collections in two stages: first, an examination of the individual object or genre, its background, rank, and usage; and second, the examination of its reception, display, and consumption by the collector (Pearce 1994: 2–3). These two stages could be loosely translated as the social history of art genres and the life stories of individual artworks when linked with their collectors. An examination of the two stages illuminates contexts of the art schools, art exhibitions, exhibition catalogues, and the collection itself which not only play host to the art genres in the course of their journeys but also ‘groom the gaze’ of the maharaja. These contexts demonstrate a refinement of collecting practices against the backdrop of the institutionalization of art due to world fairs and their apparatuses such as exhibition, documentation, and cataloguing (Breckenridge Page 2 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts 1989). These grooming grounds also pose as value arbiters for the artworks and genres. Private collecting practice, exemplified by Sayajirao, demonstrates maturity from the days of the ‘wonder-cabinet’ and ‘random collecting’ to more informed practices that rely on the long-term trajectories of art genres to appreciate them. Simultaneously, Sayajirao’s collecting practice exercises its own agency to reconfigure individual artworks and consequently reinscribe (p.64) entire genres. As a result, Sayajirao’s ‘consumption’ of visual art traditions qualify as ‘collecting’ with regard to not only informed and selective acquisitions, but also with reference to artistic expressions and their systematic planning of display and consumption.

Part I: Collecting Oil Paintings 2.1 Academic Portraiture and European Artists in the Colony

A steady stream of European and fast-emerging native portraitists popularized academic portraiture1 in colonial India. It became a genre much sought after by both British officials and native collectors. While the British officials aspired to a more elite status with these objects of prestige consumption, the Indian royals integrated in Western and international society through new consumables including the portrait. Mildred Archer, the foremost scholar to undertake an extensive study of European artists in India, records the period beginning around 1765 as one that facilitated traffic of European artists in the colony (Archer and Parlett 1992: 16). The opening up of India as a British colony presented an opportune economic and political arrangement for British artists who could now enjoy smooth passage to India and gain commercially from rich Indian patrons. In the late eighteenth century, the rise of the ‘picturesque’ and ‘sublime’ schools in Britain determined a certain romanticized way of observing the world; as a result, the colony became a perfect picture to satisfy European curiosity and lend pictorial illustrations to the travellers’ experience (Archer and Parlett 1992: 16).2 British officers engaged with the company came from uppermiddle-class backgrounds and became the new patrons of these subjects. They increasingly engaged local Indian artists who adapted their style to suit European taste and palette. This school came to be known as the Company School of painting, after the East India Company and its official patrons. It constituted informal sketchbooks, illustrated memoirs, and sets of locally produced paintings for European patrons. Several informally produced sketches or paintings became part of published books on India at a later date. Robert Melville Grindlay, who served as a military officer to the East India Company (1804–20), travelled through western India, including Baroda. His travel records were published as a lavish colour-plate book in 1826. Like other illustrated books of its genre, it visually (p.65) and textually documents various locations, monuments, peoples, customs, and natural resources that Grindlay encountered.

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Collecting the High Arts Advanced technologies in printing facilitated the reproduction of original drawings or paintings as coloured plates. As much as the company officers like Grindlay felt the need to engage Indian artists to document colonial life, the increasing volume of European artists in the colony encouraged Indian collector-patrons to engage with them. 2.1.1 European Portraitists in the Colony: Ideas of Prestige Consumption and Scientific Precision

During the middle years of the eighteenth century, it was difficult for British portraitists to break into the art market, which was mostly confined to

Figure 2.1 The cover and title pages of Scenery, Costumes, and Architecture Chiefly on the Western Side of India by Captain Robert Melville Grindlay (1826), London: R. Ackermann/Smith, Elder & Co.

the two cities of London and Bath (Archer 1979: 35).

Collection: Central Library, Mandvi,

Bagging large-scale commissions meant networking

Photographs: Manish Chauhan.

Baroda.

in the elite circles, and artists were (p.66) often not a part of these (Archer 1979: 35). In addition to this, the clientele for portrait art was divided into the urban and countryside segments, both of which had their sets of regular portraitists (Archer 1979: 35–6). This left little room for new portrait artists to secure commissions. British artists also faced the lack of a suitable platform for training and exhibition; there were a few private academies and thus artists had to resort to apprenticeships for training, which were uneven at best (Archer 1979: 35–6). Given this situation, it becomes important to ask what made India conducive for British portrait practitioners and gradually for their European and Indian counterparts. With the expansion of the fiscal and political powers of the company between 1765 and 1805, there was increased corruption and the company merchants’ exuberant wealth made an impact on British society. These returning nabobs, as the company officers were satirically addressed due to their extravagant lifestyles, encouraged artists in their search for patronage and fortunes, especially in the fast-emerging cities of Madras and Calcutta, looked upon as extensions of Britain (Archer 1979: 36, 39–40). The portrait artists’ interest to seek economic gains as well as document these Indian–oriental patrons and their exotic portraits converged. These portraitists differed from the Company School Page 4 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts artists in their exclusive practice of mostly large-scale portraits, and the Indian patrons recognized this difference. The first group of British portrait artists arrived in India from 1769. Starting with Tilly Kettle, Charles Smith, Ozias Humphrey, and George Chinnery, several other artists followed; most of them went to Madras or Calcutta and sought commissions along the upcountry route at Banaras, Lucknow, Oudh, and Faizabad.3 The nawab of Oudh, Shuja-ud-Daula, who was one of the foremost princes to erect British-style residences, appointed portraitist Tilly Kettle from 1769 to 1776, on the recommendation of the governor of Fort William (Archer 1979: 72). The nawab also commissioned the artists Ozias Humphrey and Charles Smith in 1786 at the behest of the acting governor general of the Calcutta Presidency, Sir John Macpherson (Archer 1979: 190). The selection of artists among this first batch of European portraitists relied heavily on the context of British courtier officials and was clearly arbitrary. In contrast to the aforementioned fertile centres for art production, it becomes interesting to discover how Bombay, which shared its location (p.67) with Baroda in the Western Presidency, as the economy of underdevelopment, remained an artistic backwater. With the building of the Bombay dockyard and its emergence as a developed entrepôt after 1750, it became a popular choice of residence for traders and professionals, and artists, too, followed suit as can be surmised from various signed and dated portraits produced in this period in Bombay (Godrej 2002; Maholay 2002: 11, 43, 47, 65–6). To align with Said here, one can attribute the European portraitists’ presence in India in large numbers to ready patronage in a wealthy and exotic colony to which he was first lured through travel memoirs and illustrations; the artist was later exposed to the colony by the returning ‘nabobs’, all of whom expanded the burgeoning pictorial archive of oriental imagery (Archer 1979: 39–40; Said 1991 [1978]). However, to also take note of the most frequently cited critique against Said, that is, the absence of the oriental’s voice,4 it is imperative to unravel the native collector’s position. What exactly set the stage for the large-scale reception of these portraits by native collectors? As discussed in Chapter 1, new domestic spaces lent a ‘new lifestyle context’ to royal collectors and promoted ideas of prestige expenditure and prestige consumption (Peleggi 2002: 20–1, 24–7, 35). A general acculturation of Western sociocultural practices such as recreation and food habits was seen. Given this general acculturation, there must have been an immediate context for native collectors to consume academic portraits as prestige or lifestyle goods. Perhaps the Indian royals’ motivations to court academic portraits lay partially in the motivations of company officials. In c. 1805, the transition of the British East India Company from a trading outpost to a political power led the company officials to regard themselves as the ruling elite of India. Upon subsequent territorial conquests, the British officials expanded their enclaves and, through these, their sociocultural influence. Most officials came from the professional Page 5 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts middle classes of Britain and now built large mansions in the Victorian and country-villa style. Their middle-class status in Britain also eluded inheritance and possession of furnishing items and decor accessories; oil paintings provided a good solution as wall decor (Archer 1979: 56) and satiated the officials’ desire to flaunt their new-found status (Archer 1979: 57). They also allowed officials to mimic the fashionable, elite set of patrons in Britain. Thus, on the British side, officials aspired (p.68) to elitist lifestyles as statements of their growing power and wealth, and on the Indian side, royalty attempted to integrate into British society. Integration with this homegrown group of Western elites was the first step for Indian princes to integrate with a burgeoning class of ‘transnational elite’ worldwide (Peleggi 2002: 13). Within this crucible of modernization, the British officials’ home may be regarded as an important but informal context to guide the native collector in his appreciation of academic portraits as appropriate decor items, signs of noble ancestry, and examples of the epitome of refined English tastes. Moreover, there was a general reorientation in the consumption patterns of Indian royals as they became increasingly exposed to English goods that were afforded due to a renewed globalizing thrust of colonization. Expanding British enclaves shaped Western-style prestige consumption in the form of furniture and Europeanization of Indian domestic spaces. Lifting of the company’s trade monopoly with India in 1813 also resulted in European goods flooding the Indian presidencies with a wider variety, which included household goods (Jackson and Jaffer 2004: 44). Small ‘Europe Shops’ paved the way for furnishing emporia that engaged with new, attractive display mechanisms including the creation of ‘period rooms’ (Jaffer 2006: 23). With advanced technology for printing, postal services, and transport—as part of the larger episode of the Industrial Revolution—the Indian royalty was increasingly exposed to consumption of machine-made luxury goods. This systematic evolution of a hybrid Indo-English lifestyle laid the blueprint for patterns of consumption; it might be appropriate then to situate academic portraits in a package of lifestyle accoutrements—architecture, furnishing items, decor accessories, and luxury goods. The second context that earned the native collector’s immediate favour for academic portraiture was its inherent nature vis-à-vis that of indigenous portrait traditions. Native portrait artists who engaged in the genre of fresco, mural, and miniature painting on palm leaf or paper employed organic materials such as mineral and metallic pigments. The dense nature of these colours afforded only a fair degree of blending and shading. These paintings were mostly in a flat, linear style. This does not mean that a sense of volume and mass was missing altogether; perspective was constrained as the effect of light and shade, natural flesh tones, evocation of textures, (p.69) and an overall realism were all limited by the nature of colours as well as the prevalent technique. Scientific precision

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Collecting the High Arts and photo-real finish would reach its maximum potential with the help of oil paints and large-scale portraits. As pointed out by Vidya Dehejia (1998) and Padma Kaimal (2000), generally speaking, the ‘absence of verisimilitude’ in Indian portraiture was redressed only in the Mughal manuscript (miniature) paintings. The ‘uniqueness’ of academic oil portraiture was heightened as it was characterized by both the traditionally missing attributes: ‘resemblance’ and ‘large size’. ‘Generic’ or ‘divine’ portraits were recognizable through their ‘context of usage’ as opposed to their quality of ‘likeness’.5 Thus Indic traditions of portraiture, their techniques, and compositional styles created ample space for the reception of academic portraiture, which represented the acme of a highly scientific genre. A strong sense of modernity was perceived in this scientific genre and its aspects of anatomical precision, perspective, light, and shade. Hence, the inherent quality of the medium of oil paints and their scientific-modern output became a firm guiding context for the native collector. As a result, the Baroda court commissioned native portrait artists alongside European artists. 2.1.1A Case Study I: Valentine Cameron Prinsep Meets Sayajirao at Navsari, 1877–8

Against this backdrop of British and European itinerant portraitists in India and a ready sphere for the consumption of this genre, two European portraitists found representation in Sayajirao’s collection. As compared to Oudh, Arcot, and some other princely states, European portraitists’ presence at Baroda is seen rather late. Archival evidence shows the first European artist bidding for a commission with Baroda in 1878. Valentine Cameron Prinsep (1838–1904),6 an Indian-born British portrait artist, had marked his presence in India such that he could seek references from government officials to organize sittings with Indian princes. Prinsep requested Philip S. Melvill, the Baroda-based agent to the governor general, for a sitting with Sayajirao after his stopover in Hyderabad in 1877.7 This reference from Melvill testifies the continued role of British officials as facilitators between European artists and native collectors. As in the case of several other commissions, this one, too, was organized by Dewan T. Madhavarao (p.70) while Sayajirao was still a minor prince. Madhavarao informed Melvill of Sayajirao’s sojourn in Nowsari (Navsari) where Prinsep could paint him. Accommodation, carriage, and supplies were arranged by Madhavarao, who also requested Sayajirao’s tutor F.A.H. Elliot to render assistance to the artist.8 In a separate letter to F.A.H. Elliot, Madhavarao requested him to arrange for a ‘proper room with light’ and the maharaja’s dress and ornaments.9 In turn, Elliot suggested an elaborate inventory of items that ranged from dietary requirements to lamps and lights for the artist.10 This correspondence points to the palace officials such as dewans and mentors’ maturing experience with the organization of portrait sittings. Portrait commissions demanded elaborate Page 7 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts arrangements of paraphernalia and props, unlike genres such as landscape painting wherein the artists chose their own locations and materials. The whole exercise of sitting for a portrait was prestigious for the subject and the artist alike, thereby strengthening the ‘prestige’ position of the genre. Madhavarao informed Elliot that he would send some recently shot photos of His Highness. It remains known that due to their hectic work schedules, sitters, and artists interacted over a limited number of sittings; photographs always came in handy to supplement the studies begun during a live sitting or even as sole reference sources in the absence of artist-sitter meetings (Maholay-Jaradi 2011: 48–49; Pratinidhi 1946: 476; Varma 1964: 23; Varma 1895–1906: 51, 54, 64).11 2.1.1B Case Study II: Charles Giron at the Baroda Durbar, 1891–2

Engagement with itinerant European portraitists such as Valentine Prinsep groomed Indian collectors and prepared them to source portraitists of repute in art capitals of Europe and invite them as state employees. One such example is seen in the case of Charles Giron (1850–1914),12 a Swiss portrait and landscape artist. In 1891, Giron was recommended to Sayajirao by the wife of the then finance minister,13 whose portrait was painted by the artist. By this time, Sayajirao had graced the throne for a decade as a major prince. He wished to be painted by Giron in Geneva while on his Europe

Figure 2.2 Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad

III, painted by Valentine Cameron Prinsep trip. It remains to be verified (1877), oil on canvas. if Sayajirao enjoyed a meeting or sitting with the artist in Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Geneva. However, the Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not recommendation was followed to be reproduced without prior through with an invitation to permission of the Director of Museums. Giron to join the state service in Photograph: Manish Chauhan. Baroda. The agent to (p.71) (p.72) the governor general at Baroda was the medium through whom the minister of Baroda communicated 14

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Collecting the High Arts with the secretary to the government of India, foreign department, headquartered in Simla.15 The minister of Baroda State wished to have the consent of the government of India for Giron and his assistant’s employment on the terms and conditions drafted in the memorandum prepared by Sayajirao’s office, that is, the Huzur Cutchery.16 This correspondence points to the procedures involved in hiring foreign artists in state service. The details of the conditions of service listed in the memorandum are presented here:17 1. The memo discusses the artist’s employment tenure for six months in the winter of 1891–2. 2. It hints at the reproduction of figural art by the artist, as guided by the patron-collector, His Highness. 3. The artist should teach one or two natives. 4. Expenses towards the supply of models and accessories for painting will be borne by His Highness’ government. 5. Travel to distant locations will also be organized by His Highness’ government. 6. It decides upon the working hours at six hours per day. 7. The remuneration of 4,250 francs per month for the artist’s services is fixed with details on passage to India and onward journey to Baroda. 8. 500 francs per month is decided as the remuneration for the assistant. 9. Details on provision of free accommodation and crockery are listed. 10. Upon fulfilment of six months’ service, the artist and his assistant will be provided return passage to Paris. 11. Upon breaking the contract before term, the artist would have to bear expenses for return passage. 12. On the other hand, if His Highness’ government arranges for the artist’s early departure, it would bear expenses for his return. 13. The memo states rights to ownership; that is, ‘all the works produced by the artist and his assistant to belong to His Highness’ Government (p. 73) and it shall be the option of His Highness’ Government to allow M. Giron to retain possession of any sketch xxxx’ (illegible text). 14. There are further details related to disbursement of the said remuneration. The above contract demonstrates the role of the foreign department in the approval of employment of European artists in the princely states. One sees how these contracts were drawn out formally between the collector’s office, in this case, the Huzur Cutchery of Baroda, and the concerned artist. These commissions, wherein artists became state employees by invitation and on a fixed salary, were very different from the engagement of itinerant artists who were already in the colony and sought temporary lodging and boarding facilities for one-off commissions. This case indicates the maturing of the native Page 9 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts collector’s patronage to make room for formal appointment of European artists over a prolonged period. As opposed to Valentine Prinsep’s commission of 1877, Charles Giron’s appointment in 1891 demonstrates the native collector’s engagement with full-scale genres as opposed to individual works of art. It gestures towards the collector’s interest to procure multiple series of works from particular artists/genres vis-à-vis singular pieces. This marks the first step in the maturing of Sayajirao’s consumption to collecting as it begins to consider the importance of a ‘series’ that can then stand in to represent a genre. The concept of a ‘series’ is generally important to a collection and to collection studies. In the context of collecting toys, Walter Durost (1932: 11, 43) explains how the worth of the objects is not defined so much by their intrinsic value, which may be related to use, aesthetics, or circumstances of custom, training, or habit as by their capacity to represent an idea and belong to a system or class. This point is further clarified: ‘If the said object or idea is valued chiefly for the relation it bears to some other object or idea, or objects, or ideas, such as being one of a series, part of a whole, a specimen of a class, then is it the subject of a collection’ (Durost 1932: 43).18 Giron’s engagement illuminates Sayajirao’s interest in the acquisition of multiple works of figural art from a single artist to form a set or representative series. One also sees that the consumption of academic portraits that had begun in the private chambers was gradually extended to the statewide modernization (p.74) plan as European artists were engaged to train native practitioners. The conditional obligation to teach native candidates became part of most artists’ contracts. 2.2 Early Native Portraitists and a Maratha–European Style

Two early, unsigned works at the Baroda court reveal the ‘assimilation’ of European technique in the prevalent Maratha–Tanjore style of painting. Though these works are not directly collected by Sayajirao, their discussion is essential to comprehend the social life of the genre in India and its enthusiastic reception at Baroda. These works are significant for their compositional and stylistic features, which define the threshold between the prevalent local idioms and the newly arrived European styles of painting. Though there is little information on specific artists within this genre, the general trend wherein Maratha mansions and palaces displayed the mural and miniature-painting tradition (of which portraiture was a part) is known (Doshi 1985: 63). Two distinct expressions characterized the paintings: the first being refined and the second being folkish (Doshi 1985: 63). These comparable features between both genres point to a common pool of artists who painted the murals and miniatures (Doshi 1985: 63). It is possible that such artists were employed by the Gaekwads and may have rendered the murals and painted these portraits (Doshi 1985: 63). The existence of a wide network of guilds in Baroda, which supplied mural painters, masons, woodworkers, and so on for the building and decoration of vernacular residential spaces or wadas is also known (Sheikh 1997: 22–3). Hence, while it is difficult to establish the presence of a ‘Baroda School’ as such, it is evident that local guilds Page 10 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts practised their individual styles of painting (Sheikh 1997: 22–3). To summarize, with the disintegration of full-fledged ateliers in the late eighteenth century, provincial schools of portraiture emerged and localized their stylistic and technical characteristics. A similar local Maratha style of portraiture developed and found active patronage at the Baroda court even before the arrival of Sayajirao Gaekwad III.19 The offshoot of this Maratha idiom at Baroda may have been a minor tradition and is exemplified through the two portraits that demonstrate aspects of European-style portraiture. (p.75) 2.2.1 Case Study I: Portrait of Pilajirao Gaekwad, Early Nineteenth Century

The first portrait of Pilajirao Gaekwad (r. 1721–32) is painted in the medium of gouache on paper in the early nineteenth century. ‘Though within the framework of traditional Indian painting, it exemplifies a local idiom practiced at Baroda under Maratha rule during the early 19th century’ (Parimoo in Doshi 1995: 109). The assimilation of European technique is highlighted in the rendition of the contours that serve more as shadows than clear lines (Parimoo in Doshi 1995: 109). This feature points to the influence of the Company School on the stylistic expression employed by the Marathas (Parimoo in Doshi 1995: 109). Another explanation of the technical rendition of this work is that it ‘hovers between drawing and painting’ (Sheikh in Doshi 1995: 25). ‘Although reticent, the hand of the artist has imbibed Tanjore School robustness and European naturalism in his expression …’ (Sheikh in Doshi 1995: 25). Evidently, this early work attempts to integrate an academic style chiaroscuro in the medium of gouache on paper.

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Collecting the High Arts 2.2.2 Case Study II: Portrait of Sayajirao Gaekwad II, Midnineteenth Century

Figure 2.3 Pilajirao Gaekwad (r. 1721– 32), painted by an unknown artist in the early nineteenth century, gouache on paper, 49.0 × 41.0 cm.

The second portrait, that of Sayajirao Gaekwad II (1800– Courtesy of the Department of Museums, 1847/r. 1819–47) points to the Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not arrival of oil paints and canvas to be reproduced without prior among Indian portrait artists. permission of the Director of Museums. One observes how the emphasis Accession number: PG/5B/94. on the rendition of gems and ornaments bears a strong Photograph: Manish Chauhan. resonance of the local artist’s original medium of work, that is, mineral and metallic pigments. The anatomical rendition—while employing oil paints—does not explore the scope of oils quite fully towards foreshortening. Instead, the artist uses oil paints to introduce chiaroscuro—not afforded by his traditional medium—that affords limited perspective. On the one hand, this painting may be read as an example of the floundering stages of the native artist’s practice in the new medium, which he sought to copy and assimilate. On the other hand, it may also be read as a conscious localization of the usage of European materials and technique. The native artist consciously brought his predilection for the heightened rendition of gems and ornaments, seen in traditional Tanjore works, to the newly emergent aesthetic. He chose to retain (p.76) the technique of application from his native medium and, at the same time, aspired to the precise anatomical renditions of the Euro-modern genre. This localized aesthetic characterized by a forceful evocation of textures of jewels and eventually fabrics would dominate the aesthetic of ‘indigenized’ academic portraiture in the practice of the leading society (p.77) portraitist of princely India, Raja Ravi Varma, who also graduated from the use of mineral pigments to oil colours and was self-taught like the Maratha-Tanjore portraitists. This stylistic and technical modification is illustrative of a definite shift in the handling of materials, that is, the treatment of canvas by oil paints. It helps us depart from the idea of naive ‘assimilative tendencies’ of the native practitioner, and instead arrive at his conscious participation in the indigenization of European portraiture through local aesthetic sensibilities. (p.78)

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Collecting the High Arts The subaltern artist who creates popular God pictures in colonial India is said to occupy an ‘inter-ocular’ or ‘inter-visual’ field (Pinney 2004: 34–44). The inter-ocular is clarified as the overlapping or shared space of images and media, whereby the nature of the visual image becomes porous and can travel or migrate to other visual domains to forge new associations or reconfigurations (Pinney 1997). With regard to the print medium, theatre, and photography of late-nineteenthand early-twentieth-century India, this ‘spillage between genres’ is attributed to conscious visual interreferencing by practitioners (Pinney 2004: 34–5). In light of this, our Maratha–Tanjore

Figure 2.4 Portrait of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad II (r. 1800–47), painted by an

practitioner may be seen as occupying an inter-ocular field

unknown artist in the nineteenth century, oil on canvas.

that comprises his native idiom of practice, the Company School

Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior

tradition, and the new academic portraiture. He consciously permission of the Director of Museums. ‘selects’ technical and stylistic Photograph: Manish Chauhan. strengths from these various visual fields and extends his own aesthetic formulation to reconfigure them in a new work.

A parallel example is seen in the analysis of an 1875 Tanjore mica painting, titled by W.G. Archer and Mildred Archer as An Indian Artist Copying a European Portrait (Ramaswamy 2003: xvii). This portrait depicts a native artist seated at a table with a blank canvas, about to begin ‘copying’ the portrait of a European soldier (Ramaswamy 2003: xvii). In the absence of the final image, it is presumptuous to call the native artist’s practice as ‘copying’. Although the art of portraiture is the new prestige genre for artists and consumers alike, as argued by Sumathi Ramaswamy (2003: xviii), the artist’s agency cannot be reduced to ‘passive imitation’; invention, hybrid reconfigurations, new interpretations, and partialization are possible as the artist takes cognizance of the multitude of Page 13 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts visual fields around him and is not interested in producing sameness. This early modern artist’s cosmopolitan leaning anticipates bigger experiments and their conscious designs and study tours for an inclusive art practice.20 The section on European portraitists at the beginning of this chapter paints a homogenous and uniform acceptance of academic oil portraiture in the colony. To nuance that narrative and to present a case study in stark contrast to Baroda’s early cosmopolitanism, one discusses princely Mysore. Janaki Nair (2011: 8, 66) presents the phase between 1812 and 1831 in Mysore as one marked by royal anxiety; the Wodeyar maharajas focused their energies on establishing an unbroken royal

Figure 2.5 An Indian artist working on a

lineage and its legitimacy in a political contest with the

European portrait, painted on mica by an unknown artist, c. 1875.

British. Thus, the need to reject (p.79) European traditions

Courtesy of Mildred and W.G. Archer,

was as sharp as the need to project a courting of traditions

Indian Painting for the British, 1770–1880 (1955), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

in the visual arts that paradoxically led to the ‘invention’ of tradition (Nair 2011: 66). Much later, given the stability of indirect rule, fixed political boundaries of the Mysore territory, and a reconstituted monarchy in 1881, Chamarajendra Wodeyar resolved relations with the colonial powers; this phase marked an easy espousal of European artistic practices (Nair 2011: 72–3, 92–3). In fact, now the academic oil portrait was sought out to represent singular and family portraits to focus on monogamy, legitimate heirs, and least numbers of claimants to the throne! (Nair 2011: 72–3, 92–3). So while Mysore eschewed oil portraits in the first half of the nineteenth century, Baroda’s early native portraitist made fresh contributions to the overall development of academic portraiture in the colony. In the absence of definite records on the two portrait commissions discussed earlier, it is not easy to invoke the agency of the patron, except to the extent of playing patron/collector, though the artist’s agency in the localization of the Euro-modern materials and genre is apparent. However, in the case of Ravi Varma, the collector-patron’s definite agency in the localization of academic portraiture will be noted. The Page 14 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts idea of ‘inter-ocularity’ (p.80) as a guiding context is also vital in Varma’s case and linked closely to his collector. 2.3 Self-taught Native Artists and Expansion of Portraiture

The early native portrait artists at Baroda court affiliated with the provincial schools of miniature painting and were left to explore the scope of oil colours independently in a somewhat limited inter-ocular field. Later portraitists such as Tiroovengada Naidu and Raja Ravi Varma who enjoyed residencies at the Travancore and Baroda courts in the decade of the 1870s watched European portrait artists at work and accessed European copies and prints. This marks a definite strengthening of the overlap of visual fields, which, it must be recalled, was enabled by the rising consumption of Western visual art traditions at princely courts. Formal, medium, or long-term appointments of European artists facilitated the native artist’s education, chiefly the knowledge of ‘mixing’ oil colours, which was crucial to achieve shading and perspective. Another point of differentiation between the practice of early native portraitists and later-day practitioners was that the early artist attempted to imbibe the principles of oil painting within his own local genre of practice, namely provincial miniature style portraiture. The later portraitists, such as Naidu and Varma, positioned themselves as academic portraitists and attempted full-scale oil painting with large-sized canvas sheets and oil paints, by now readily available in the Indian market. In this continued and expanded discussion of the long-term trajectory of academic portraiture in the colony, one focuses on the materials and techniques available to the later self-taught artists whose careers overlapped with the establishment of art schools and the opening of the Indian market to European goods. These developments revolutionized the production of oil portraits by native artists and redefined consumption practices, which could now find the Western prestige portrait’s equal match in the indigenously produced artwork. Sophisticated technology and shipping—two important aspects of the larger Industrial Revolution—led to the import of neatly packaged consumer goods, including art materials: from 1840, oil paints came in collapsible tin tubes, which were portable (Chawla in Sharma 1993: 118–19). The wide range of shades and paints marketed (p.81) from this time like cerulean, viridian, ultramarine blue, chrome yellow, and cadmium helped native artists to produce the same colourful assortment of flesh tones, jewels, and brocades as their European counterparts (Chawla in Sharma 1993: 118–19). The properties of traditional paints vis-à-vis oil paints is analysed to explain how each required a unique process of blending, application, and drying to produce the best results. Oil was a fairly unknown medium for Indian artists, who had traditionally painted with different forms of tempera. All water-based paints dry fast without really allowing the painter to blend and manoeuvre his paint and brush. The painting of an arm, for example, depended on the gradation of Page 15 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts flesh colour from light to dark in order to give it realism. This was the technique which later painters continued to use when they first switched over from tempera to oils, at a time when they were still trying to understand the potential of oil paints. Through trial and error, Varma worked with this supple medium, while understanding the blending, smoothening and the play that were possible with this slow-drying substance. (Chawla in Sharma 1993: 118–19) Two artists in Sayajirao’s collecting practice can be examined against this backdrop of the opening up of the Indian market for new materials and the native artist’s strengthening grasp over oil painting. As compared to the early consumption of academic portraits by European artists, consumption of portraits by self-taught native artists unravels institutional contexts— chiefly, the colonial exhibition as informing the collector. Art practices became increasingly institutionalized in India and Britain from 1851–1925 due to the proliferation of world fairs and exhibitions. These fairs transformed the exercises of collecting and display from being those of random eclecticism to becoming ‘scientific’ and refined (Breckenridge 1989). They provided ideological and practical apparatuses and tools to collectors worldwide. The first apparatus advocated ‘refinement’ and ‘taste’ and had a direct bearing on the process of ‘modernization’ among Indian collectors such as Sayajirao (Breckenridge 1989: 205–6, 211–12). As for the second apparatus, reproduction of images and naming and classification systems employed in exhibition catalogues provided information on authenticity, ‘period’, ‘provenance’, and ‘medium’ of artworks among other details. The ouster of random sampling in favour of ‘documented’ works singularly (p.82) changed the face of collecting. The exhibitions’ practice of certifying prizewinning works provided a pool of emerging native oil portraitists to collectors. Naidu and Varma’s study demonstrates the presence of these new institutionalized guiding principles in Sayajirao’s collecting practice. All the same, one will see how the native collector institutionalizes and internationalizes his own position as a regular lender to exhibitions, thereby providing a reciprocal appraisal of artists and genres. This phenomenon inaugurates Sayajirao’s role as an arbiter of new, emerging styles, such as the localized academic portrait that would reinforce itself as an independent genre through repeated loans. 2.3.1 Case Study I: Tiroovengada Naidu at the Baroda Durbar, c. 1878

The earliest artist in the category of self-taught Indian oil painters appointed at the Baroda court appears to be Tiroovengada Naidu.21 Naidu illustrates the case of traditional guild painters from Madura (a district in the erstwhile Madras Presidency) in South India, who availed short-term apprenticeships with senior artists to establish themselves as oil portraitists.22 It may be speculated that Naidu was introduced to Baroda through Dewan T. Madhavarao who was instrumental in bringing several artists and craftsmen, especially from Travancore, to the Lakshmi Vilas. Correspondence dedicated to exhibitions Page 16 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts ascertains that Naidu was at the Baroda court at least three years before Ravi Varma.23 He painted a portrait each of Sayajirao and Madhavarao; these were loaned to the Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona, in 1878, and Naidu was also sent to Poona for a week-long stay with a servant to see the pictures which were exhibited.24 He painted General Watson’s portrait in 188225 and Kashirao Gaekwad’s (Sayajirao’s father) posthumous portrait in 1884. These two works suggest the artist’s engagement with Baroda until at least 1884. Portrait of Sir Elliot by Naidu as well as his Sree Krishna and Yesoda were loaned to the Fine Arts Exhibition of Poona in 1881 alongside Ravi Varma’s A Nair Girl Tuning a Fiddle.26 Naidu’s representation at exhibitions was only the beginning of a long and sustained commitment on the part of Madhavarao and Sayajirao to represent self-taught native artists in the medium of portraiture at international exhibitions. Ravi Varma was to become the most scintillating example of this practice. (p.83) (p.84) Naidu painted genrebased ethnic subjects and mythological themes in addition to portraits; Mahratta Lady, Guzerati Lady, Sree Krishna, and Yesoda were some of them.27 The similarities in subjects explored by Naidu and Varma testify the importance of three themes: ‘portraits’, ‘genre subjects’, and ‘mythological subjects’. Genre subjects were renditions of native Indians and drew their thematic continuity from the Company School that engaged heavily with the depiction of castes and occupational types, which may also be seen as a pictorial extension of the colonial obsession with categorization of the colonized peoples. Classification and naming was a Figure 2.6 Kashirao Gaekwad (1832– colonial device to facilitate 1877), painted by MCT Naidu/ administration. Its other Tiroovengada Naidu (1884), oil on component, that is, the canvas. ‘technological grid’ of railways, Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. roads, postage, and telegraph, was a means to consolidate the physical space of the colony for better Page 17 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts governance (Prakash 1999: Photograph: Manish Chauhan. 159–70). Together these colonial instruments forged a new understanding of ‘India’ as an assembly of distinct regional types. These ‘regional types’ were actually connected by new modes of transport and hence accessible to artists; the regional types also congregated in cosmopolitan cities such as Bombay, which became an important base for artists such as Varma (1895–1906, 1896: 21, 23). Their visual representations also occupied the new medium of photography that added to the inter-visuality of the space occupied by native artists. Thus, in its new reconfigured avatar the prevalent Company School theme now depicted genre subjects as native ‘regional’ types, dressed in regional costumes and complementary authentic locations.28 In addition to portraits and genre subjects, the third nascent theme of mythological subjects would also gain momentum. All three themes drew on the tradition of academic portraiture for their materials and technique while also referencing each other to facilitate ‘migration of images’, to borrow Christopher Pinney’s (1997) phrase. The systematic engagement of Ravi Varma in Sayajirao’s collecting practice reveals the coming together of the three themes within the larger fold of academic portraiture. 2.3.2 Case Study II: Raja Ravi Varma at the Baroda Durbar, 1881

Raja Ravi Varma’s (1848–1906)29 engagement with Baroda merits a lengthy and detailed discussion. His case illustrates the consolidation of localized aesthetics within academic portraiture. As a result, a highly (p.85) independent and indigenous genre emerged. Much like Tiroovengada Naidu, the Travancorebased Varma was introduced to the Baroda court by Dewan T. Madhavarao, the ertswhile dewan of Travancore State and one who knew the artist and his works. In addition to commissions at Travancore, Varma began to paint works systematically for exhibitions. These exhibition entries eventually helped with the artist’s introduction to Baroda. Varma had gained recognition especially through two works that depicted ethnic genre subjects—Nair Lady at Her Toilet and Tamil Lady Playing on a Sarabat—both of which won the gold medal at the Madras Fine Arts Exhibition in 1873 and 1874 respectively (Tampy 1934: 8, 10). In 1880, Varma’s first connection with Baroda was built in two capacities: as the prizewinner of the Gaekwad’s gold medal and the potential artist-in-residence at Baroda court. T. Madhavarao sent the painting Nair Lady from the Travancore Collection to the 1880 arts exhibition at Poona. It won the Gaekwad’s gold medal (Varma 1964: 12). In all possibility, Madhavarao played a crucial role in awarding this Baroda-sponsored prize to the Travancore-based artist to endorse his work. Madhavarao also acquired Sita Bhoopravesham from the Travancore Palace premises and presented it to Sayajirao (Ravi Varma: 14). In some ways, Madhavarao was salvaging Varma’s important works that were left ignored and unsupported by the new ruling king Visakham Thirunal, who ascended the

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Collecting the High Arts throne in May 1880; he was also trying to relocate Varma’s ‘patronage base’ to Baroda. The crucial point to note here is that Sita Bhoopravesham and Shakuntala Writing to Dushyanta30 appear to be the first two mythological compositions by Varma; they may have provided the seed idea to Sayajirao and Varma to explore a full-scale series of mythological works that eventually represented India’s high art. However, Tiroovengada Naidu, whose presence was marked from c. 1878 at Baroda, also painted Shakuntala Writing Love Letter, the exact dates of which remain unknown. Varma knew about this work and recommended it for the Cutch Exhibition of 1884.31 Varma and Naidu cross-referenced each other’s themes as will be seen in further discussions. The making of a new national art was a collaborative effort between Varma and his foremost collector Sayajirao, alongside Madhavarao and artists such as Naidu who developed a formidable portfolio, often (p.86) preceding Varma’s practice. This new genre’s evolution is viewed in the continued trajectory of the social life of academic portraiture and its sustained consumption by Sayajirao. Due to Madhavarao’s presence, Varma was invited as the state guest for the investiture of Sayajirao in 1881 (Sheikh in Sharma 1993: 77). At this time, he was commissioned to paint seven portraits of the royal household (Chawla 2010: 86). With these works produced over four months, the portraitist was entrenched in Sayajirao’s private collecting practice. A studio space was facilitated for the artist, and he subsequently made several visits to the state. 2.3.2A Varma’s Genre Subjects: Fieldwork and Documentation of Diverse Indian Types

From 1881 to 1888, the period between the two landmark commissions for Baroda, Varma worked towards a prolific output of genre subjects. As explored through Naidu’s career, these genre subjects were renditions of native Indian regional types and drew their thematic continuity from the Company School. Genre subjects depicted actors in routine chores, hobbies, and domestic settings as opposed to the Company School’s caste-based occupational depictions. One sees the application of the academic-style portrait to the production of genre subjects; to put it differently, genre subjects emerged within academic portraiture. This marked a clear two-way shift in the long-term trajectory of portraiture: firstly, portraiture now included genre subjects not as generic occupational types but as ‘real’ sitters, at least in the case of Varma. Secondly, the category of genre subjects did not remain a derivative one; it emerged as a distinct, independent type. The unhelpful situation of not having ready models to practise anatomical rendition inadvertently provided Varma with a large documentation of real sitter subjects in domestic situations. These subjects were eventually formalized on canvas as ‘genre subjects’, which also formed a favoured category for native Page 19 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts artists at colonial exhibitions. This pictorial documentation of real sitters in the form of sketchbooks by Varma was accompanied by notes of the location, culture, and architecture maintained by the artist’s brother and assistant, Raja Raja Varma (Nandakumar in Parimoo 1998: 27–29; Pratinidhi 1946: 474; Varma 1896, 1895–1906). These sketches (p.87) provided Ravi Varma with a copious archive of images to depict diverse regional Indian types (Varma 1964: 34).32 In their visual flavour, while these depictions moved away from the stereotypical images of castes and professions that were the highpoint of the Company School repertoire, they reinforced the oriental’s interest in expanding the archive of orientalism, albeit with a different motivation: one being to achieve the scientifically precise and lifelike qualities of the academic oil portrait to depict ‘Indian’ types. Hence, the conventions of academic oil portraiture, in terms of volume, mass, depth, chiaroscuro, real flesh tones, and textured surfaces, were brought to bear on Indian subjects. The localization of aesthetics continued in the treatment of jewels, fabrics, and even anatomical proportions. The exhibitions’ repeated endorsement of genre subjects is reflected in Varma’s sustained presence as prizewinner in this category.33 Thus, while Varma’s own masterful documentation of regional genre types was ongoing and exhibitions encouraged the category, Sayajirao’s agency as a collector and lender facilitated the display of Varma’s works. The native collector not only displayed his awareness of the burgeoning culture of taxonomies and classification at exhibitions, but also astutely responded to the growth of individual categories through commissions and loans of multiple paintings or entire series.34 Thus, these individual paintings by Varma and their biographies were able to reinscribe the entire genre of academic portraiture and lend it a new meaning. It bears testimony to the proposition that although difficult, it was not impossible for individual objects to influence the long-term trajectory of an entire set (Appadurai 1986: 36). From the time of Naidu, the thin output of genre subjects had clearly proliferated and become an independent category in which artists and collectors vied for representation and certification. The exhibition committees as well as collector-lenders and artists cultivated a taste in favour of this new style. This means that the ideological and practical apparatuses of exhibitions firmly supported the depiction of Indian subjects in the scientific technique of academic realism. The nature and perpetuation of exhibition and awards’ categories flourished on the principle of ‘othering’ the native artists and their practice. Thus the category of the ‘genre subject’ or ‘oil paintings illustrative of the life of native people’35 or the rubric of ‘excellent of their class’ or ‘native work in a particular medium’ (Mitter 1994: 68) marked the native (p.88) artist, or better still marginalized him.36 The most apparent function of this system of naming and maintaining binaries is to serve the British rationale of maintaining a difference between the Indian artist and his European counterpart. However, beyond the obvious lies an ‘interstitial zone of images and practices’ that are a result of ‘the Page 20 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts contradictory exercise of British power’ (Prakash 1999: 20). What exactly was the contradiction in this painstakingly detailed and well-crafted system of exhibitions? The paradox of this colonial device lay in lending an independent name and place to the emerging practices of native art. The native collector keenly responded to this paradoxical structure by displaying new localized experiments of European portraiture. These localized genres actually became recognizable as autonomous homegrown genres on the very strength of classification and naming. The classificatory structure not only endorsed these new experiments as different or native but also as Indian and hence national. In unravelling the native agency against this discussion of colonial devices, one has looked beyond the native subject as a passive object of colonial domination and of British India’s career in either submission or opposition to colonialism (Prakash 1999: 19; Said 1991 [1978]). The collector’s adroit negotiation of colonial apparatuses points to that otherwise invisible ‘interstice’ that hosts native agency and nationalism within a predominantly colonial space.37 This argument is strengthened further through Sayajirao’s role as the lender of Varma’s set of ten genre paintings to the Chicago Exposition of 1893. This series was acclaimed for its ‘ethnological value’ while also taking note of the ‘progress of instruction in art (in the colony)’.38 This means that the rigid binaries were gradually loosened and eventually displaced in the nineteenth century to offer the passage of science to the colonized people, to instill a sense of equal participation, and to make them ‘modern subjects’ (Prakash 1999: 3–4, 8). This sense of equal participation is lent by the colonial officials at exhibition committees who display a sustained confidence in the ‘native artist’ as the most suitable exponent of ‘native types’, a belief resonant of the Company School. However, in the scientific European technique of portraiture, the native artist could only compete with other native practitioners and hence become excellent in his own class. The Chicago Exposition Certificate evidences the arrival of the native practitioner in the genre of academic portraiture (p.89) while also underlining his non-assimilation among mainstream European practitioners. On the other hand, the artist and collector’s interest lies in positioning the native artist as equally capable of courting the scientific Euro-modern oil portraiture and localizing it. Despite the employment of these rubrics and their strategy to maintain a difference between the native and European exponents, it is proven that Baroda’s loan of a set of ten paintings to Chicago facilitated international appraisal for this locally grown genre. Prakash (1999: 8, 20–1) acknowledges the formulation of binaries to justify the British administration’s ‘civilizing mission’ in the eighteenth century; he also notes the gradual displacement of these binaries. Varma’s success at exhibitions proves the arrival of the native patron and practitioner as an agent of the new scientific and indigenized genre. This arrival of the native agent resonates in Prakash’s (1999: 8) formation of Western-educated Indian elite and the indigenization of science, albeit in a space which, according to him, becomes Page 21 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts neutral and free of the binary oppositions in nineteenth-century colonial governance. At this juncture, one contests Prakash’s position to show that the exhibitions’ domain never quite displaced its founding binaries.39 Instead, the binaries were entrenched ever more firmly to the paradoxical advantage of native and national artists. It is crucial to take note of exhibition committees as well as other collectors’ perception of Baroda as Varma’s ‘chief lending agency’ to exhibitions. An enquiry for Varma’s (and Naidu’s) artworks from the Cutch Exhibition Committee of 1884 testifies this.40 The maharaja’s office made efforts to elicit a response directly from Varma. In turn, it also kept officers in Cutch informed about a current loan of Varma’s works to the Calcutta International Exhibition of 1883, and the eventual availability of only one work by Varma (Nair Girl with Sorrowful Look) and two by Tiroovengada Naidu (Guzerati Girl Plucking Flowers and Shakuntala Writing Love Letter) as against the original request for Ramayana pictures Angry Sita with the Rishis and Ram Laxman Sea. It is also interesting to learn about Varma’s close ties with Naidu wherein both artists communicate with each other to share their works as part of a common loan to Cutch.41 This sequence of communication points to the royal Baroda collection’s role as a manager and facilitator of Varma and Naidu’s paintings in a hectic (p. 90) schedule of regular exhibition displays. Indian artists could participate in colonial exhibitions but costs were prohibitive, thus making it impossible to exhibit outside of their own hometowns (Mitter 1994: 67). Without the collector as facilitator and lending agency, the likes of Varma may not have managed the high visibility he gained in the exhibition circuit. Thus the context of the royal Baroda Collection and exhibitions mutually reinforced the value of Varma’s genre subjects and endorsed them as an independent category. 2.3.2B Varma’s Mythological Paintings: Pan-Indian Inputs and a New Cosmopolitanism

Furthermore, this series of mostly single-sitter ‘genre subjects’ that developed within the practice of academic portraiture grew into multi-actor mythological paintings. Sree Krishna and Yesoda by Naidu and Shakuntala Writing to Dushyanta and Sita Bhoopravesham by Varma were one-off mythological compositions, already on the exhibition trail in the 1870s. From 1871 the colonial administration, through spokespersons such as Lord Napier (governor of Madras), advised Indian artists trained in European painting to draw from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, described as ‘the most inexhaustible and diversified stories for pictorial representation which any country should possess’ (Nair in Sharma 1993: 73). Lord Napier reinforced the merits of visual representation of the Indian epics and classical literary themes with the ‘powers of European Art’ to formulate an Indian counterpart to European history painting (Venniyoor 1981: 96). Without diminishing the colonial backing for these indigenous themes and their existing Page 22 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts output by native artists, Sayajirao’s agency to conceive the mythological project as a series and exhibit it publicly to mark its inception as an autonomous genre is perceptible. The evolution of this genre reflects systematic phases of experiment and study on the part of Varma, which were backed by Sayajirao. In 1888, Sayajirao met Varma while holidaying at the southern Indian hill station of Ootacamund to commission a series of 14 puranic pictures (Venniyoor 1981: 26–7). A clear extension and application of the genre subject to the making of the mythological series can be learnt from the India-wide tour undertaken by Varma soon after this meeting. He aimed (p.91) to refine his study of regional types and find appropriate costumes to dress his mythological actors. Gulammohammed Sheikh (1993: 77) recognizes this link between the India tour and the 1888 commission. A closer look at some examples in the 1888 series reveals the borrowing of ‘real models’ from Varma’s sketchbooks and field studies for genre subjects.42 These mythological episodes are provided ‘real settings’ through the insertion of backdrops and props, which are accumulated and documented during fieldtrips and are also important to Varma’s single-sitter subjects. In the context of Varma’s field studies, one recalls Sayajirao’s own ethnological notes recorded in Chapter 1. In addition to the localization of the academic portrait through the genre subject, another distinct process of indigenization is seen in the application of distinct flesh tones and animated stances to Varma’s actors. Indian classical, literary, and dance-drama traditions shaped Varma’s works in such a way as to create an alternative style of high art (Maholay-Jaradi in Parimoo and Sarkar 2009: 43–9). A keen scholar of Sanskrit literature, Varma was very aware of canonical and other literary traditions (Maholay-Jaradi in Parimoo and Sarkar 2009: 47, 49).43 The representation of his high-caste characters as fair-skinned and low-caste or menial characters such as Meghanathan in Victory of Indrajit44 as dark-skinned, followed specific canonical injunctions found in texts such as the Abhinayadarpanam. Such texts, which dealt with the visual- and performing-art traditions, were known to Varma.45 His amply proportioned women were shaped by classical literary traditions and their contemporary interpretations. Authors like Kalidasa’s works are replete with a picturesque language that describes the ideal nayika. These characteristic features or lakshana of the heroine became standard conventions not only in literature but also in the plastic and performing arts. Varma’s nayikas are also reminiscent of the celebration of sringara (erotic mood) in Kathakali through the contemporary compositions of the day: courtier writers like Irayimman Thampi (1788–1856) and Vidwan Raja Raja Varma, along with Swati Thirunal, initiated new trends in devotional compositions that began to be interspersed with the sringara rasa that gave expression to the nayika’s body type (Awasthi in Sharma 1993: 110). Besides, in Malayalam literature, there is a great tradition of poetry in Manipravalam (a language tissue rich in Sanskrit words selected for its musical qualities), (p.92) and the anatomical

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Collecting the High Arts type advocated in this literary evolution was also well-endowed (Chaitanya 1960: 9). In the overall composition and individual treatment of his actors, Varma was also influenced by the indigenous performing arts such as Kathakali and Thullal with which he engaged as a child (Kumar in Sharma 1993: 61). The spatial arrangements of protagonists and supporting characters and the majestic, animated quality of their limbs, which appear to undertake a crisp movement in space, are stylistically and technically attributable to Kathakali.46 This idea of painting a tableau, like in a dance-drama wherein the characters interact or see each other, denies the presence of the beholder. This ‘absorptive strategy’ observed in Varma’s work is explained as a mark of distinction of Western art and the very antithesis of ritual or cultic art that facilitates eye contact between the subject of the artwork and the beholder (Pinney in Ramaswamy 2003: 116– 17). Varma’s single-subject paintings that afforded interaction between the beholder and the subject of the artworks evolved into narrative-style, multisubject tableaux through the Baroda commissions. The subsequent discussion will reveal how European history painting made the absorptive element available to Varma. Additionally, the artist’s local milieu and its rich performing arts repertoire also guided the gradual evolution of Varma’s tableau-like mythological compositions.47 For, Varma’s appreciation of the native performing art forms was profound. He comprehended their technical aspects to the extent of applying them to another medium. His improvisations in final renditions also point to a distinct stylization of gestures and stance, which are inspired by the indigenous performing arts.48 Scholarship on Indian art of the colonial period has often used ‘external standards’ or the imprint of ‘international modernism’ for its analyses, thereby failing to unravel the artist’s individual choices (Mitter 1994: 7, 10). With this analysis of the collector and artist’s agency in the reformulation of the European genre, one credits vernacular and regional aesthetic tropes and their conscious courting. Sayajirao’s commissions to Varma begin to weld themes, styles, and techniques from diverse traditions of Indian literature and art. They also employ models, costumes, and locations from across India, thereby becoming carriers of a graphic national imagination. Both the collector and the artist recognize that the construction of a national expression is not solely about occidental orientations49 (p.93) or revivalism, or about courting vernacular traditions. Instead, it can be a cosmopolitan assemblage of foreign imports alongside the past and living native traditions. One of the definitions of ‘collecting’ supports that objects need to be valued for the ideas they represent (Durost 1932: 10). If Varma’s Baroda commissions are read in conjunction with this view, they represent ideas of nationalism and cosmopolitanism to qualify as a collection.

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Collecting the High Arts One does not attempt to dwarf the agency of the artist in the creation of these landmark works. All the same, it becomes important to recall that the conception of this emerging style as a ‘series’ was crucial to its inception as a genre. Secondly, every mythological commission sponsored by Sayajirao marks a distinct phase of evolution in this compositional style. Thirdly, Sayajirao exercised his agency as a lender to exhibit the landmark 1888 series in Bombay and Baroda in 1890–1; the display gained immense favour and popularity with audiences.50 Without a complete ‘series’, an exhibition display would not have been possible. Moreover, this body of works and its ability to hold as an independent exhibition endorsed the potential of a new experiment to grow into a full-fledged ‘genre’. This landmark acquisition and display supported by the native collector set forth this newly incepted genre on a long-term trajectory and an independent social life of its own. 2.3.2C Widening the Frame of Reference: The European Copy

Varma met Sayajirao again while he was part of Prince Marthanda Varma’s entourage in 1895–6. From 1895, Varma (1895–1906: 2–3; 1896: 28–32) began to study and make copies of European works in the Lakshmi Vilas Palace. Against a brief backdrop of the culture of collecting copies by Sayajirao, one sees the systematic referencing of European history paintings by Varma for mythological compositions. The culture of making copies of European originals flourished from the time of the Mughal collector-patrons, especially Jehangir. These copies fulfilled the desire to collect and display landmark European compositions that could not be acquired in their original form. Moreover, the collector-patrons engaged their more gifted artists to make copies so that these native practitioners could assimilate the technical, stylistic, and compositional strengths of the originals and apply them to later commissions for their patrons. It is interesting to see how the reliance on copies was geared to fill the void of (p.94) significant originals or towards the formulation of new, original styles and themes. Likewise, works of old European masters remained out of reach for collectors in colonial India, making room for acquisition of ‘copies’. Portraitist George Chinnery helped the private collector Gopi Mohun Tagore to import copies of old masters from Europe (Guha-Thakurta 1992: 51). European ateliers facilitated copies of Renaissance paintings. A whole segment of ‘copies of masters’ on display at the 1874 Calcutta Exhibition enjoyed prize sponsorship from the Calcutta zamindars and elite collectors (Mitter 1994: 74–5). Sayajirao was especially interested in narrative-style European history painting,51 and engaged his network of resource persons to source or commission copies. Archival sources point to the role of architects such as F.A. Fillion in commissioning copies of European masters.52 In addition to ‘copies’ in the form of paintings, Sayajirao relied on copies in the form of photographs or through reproductions in catalogues, subscription to art magazines, or even popular prints for reference.53 The artist operated in this inter-ocular space, and Page 25 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts the native collector was also aware of the inter-ocularity that was afforded by his own consumption patterns and that it could be offered to the artist. Sayajirao decided to acquire a collection of original European art (Codell 2003: 136). His building of a European art collection from 1910 to 1911 onwards is read as ‘Sayajirao’s competitive gesture of collecting Europe’ (Singh in Sinha 2009: 51). It highlights the colonial government’s failure to provide native audiences with a high-art collection. As a reformist royal elite, the maharaja knew he could facilitate this collection (Singh in Sinha 2009: 50, 51). Thus, although the formal expansion of the European collection happened in the form of the Picture Gallery at the Baroda Museum in 1920, Sayajirao acquired copies and originals in smaller numbers from the 1880s. Raja Varma’s diaries provide details of the brothers’ visits to the Lakshmi Vilas, Motibag, and Nazarbag palaces and the artworks they saw there during the allIndia tour of 1894–9. During these quick visits, there may have been little time to make copies, though the brothers may have taken shots of paintings which could then be used as references (Varma 1895–1906: 2–3; 1896: 28–32). Alternatively, they may have made copies during their trip to Baroda in 1901 (Varma 1895–1906: 34). Another possibility is to have procured prints or engravings of original paintings after which (p.95) the copies were made. Thus, from 1895, Varma entrenched himself in the culture of making and referencing copies for the Lakshmi Vilas.

Figure 2.7 Benjamin Constant’s Judith in one of the royal palaces, Baroda. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

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Collecting the High Arts The French orientalist painter Benjamin Constant’s Judith, noted as one of the most significant paintings on display in the Durbar Hall of the Makarpura Palace, and now in the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum, was copied by Varma (Weeden 1911: 281, 285). The rendition of the female protagonist in a light, marblelike complexion, naked down to the waist is redeployed for Varma’s famous mythological composition Victory of Indrajit. The celestial nymph’s sari drops off to reveal her marblecomplexioned body. Another view is that the nymph is modelled on a classical Venus and the Indian sari is used as a neo-classical drape (Sheikh in Sharma 1993: 81). European copies became definite reference points for indigenous compositions, and actors and settings could now migrate from one genre to another through the overlap of visual traditions that was (p.96) (p. 97) afforded by the large scale of consumption at the Baroda Palace. Charity became a reference point for the work

Figure 2.8 Benjamin Constant’s Judith, oil on canvas. Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

Mandodari,54 also titled Poverty, wherein a fair-skinned high-caste Brahmin woman flips a coin to a dark-complexioned beggar boy. Reclining Nair Woman55 is modelled after the impressionist work Olympia by Édouard Manet (Chawla in Sharma 1993: 117–18). In these works, the localization of the aesthetic of European history painting is evident. While the copies were made with the idea of ‘copying’ or ‘emulating’ the original theme to grasp its technique and style, its eventual application to indigenous subjects involved a definite adaptation process. One sees that the mimetic tone of making copies was offset by definite ideas and visuals from Varma’s field studies and Page 27 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts documentation, indigenous performing arts, or literary sources. These guiding principles lent to the painting a heavily indigenized context. Moreover, the realm of prints and reproductions disciplined the gaze of the collector in favour of academic portraiture and history painting; he thus encouraged cross-referencing of images that occupied the palace collection. For had these copies been restricted for study purposes, they might not have enjoyed display in the royal collection; they were intended as collectibles. 2.3.2D Reception of a National High Art

One has avoided using the word ‘eclecticism’ to describe Varma’s works. However, it might not be misplaced if brought in at this stage after having explained Varma’s cosmopolitan experiment in great detail. Geeta Kapur nuances the idea of eclecticism thus: ‘Eclecticism helps to legitimize derivativeness and to contain it up to the point that it is transformed into independent creative action and serves to define difference or even radical alterity’ (Kapur in Poshyananda 1996: 63). In light of this explanation, one can position Varma’s works as eclectic. When placed in a continuum of modern experiments within Baroda, one sees that after several stages of disassembly, reassembly, cross-referencing, assimilation, reworking, and adaptation Sayajirao and Varma’s discussions and output culminated in an altogether distinct visual art tradition. It went beyond a reassembly of artistic tenets to their complete rearticulation in an alternative and cosmopolitan experiment. M.F. Hussain’s position may be accorded in retrospect to Varma. Hussain, like other Indian artists, is seen in a paradoxical dual identity: (p.98) one, as an autonomous artist and the second, as a spokesperson of the people of a national community (Kapur in Poshyananda 1996: 60).56 Hence, Hussain invokes Gods who become mascots of a national culture (Kapur in Poshyananda 1996: 60). Indeed, both Sayajirao and Varma saw pictures of gods as the ideal, most representative subjects to frame a national visual art type. As much as the collector’s idea of alternative modernity was extended to Varma’s art, critics and audiences, too, began to perceive a modern national art in this project. Ramananda Chatterjee, a leading art critic of that time, especially appreciated Varma’s works. He hailed Varma as the greatest painter of modern India who contributed to nation-building (Chatterjee 1907: 86). Balendranath Tagore and other Bengali critics who contributed to contemporary popular journals such as Sadhana, Prabasi, and Bharati received Varma’s works as an ‘independent variety of high art’ with a ‘new national iconography’ (Guha-Thakurta 1992: 110). Balendranath Tagore’s 1884 essays Chitra-o-Kavya framed a dominant aesthetic code for the new national high art; this code was framed on ideas of modernity and Indianness (Tagore referred to by Guha-Thakurta in Sharma 1993: 54). Evidently, Varma’s works won critical acclaim for becoming a distinct category, a genre in itself that was capable of representing a modern nation.

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Collecting the High Arts 2.4 Art School-trained Native Portraitists as Advisors

From the days of the nascent and informal context of British itinerant artists, the academic portrait was a prestige genre for princely India. Later the formal context of the art school also lent itself to fortify the genre’s prestigious position. Art schools provided an institutional context to guide the native collector in his consumption of what became an increasingly ‘locally produced’ European genre. The Bombay School of Art and its prolific practitioners clarify the repositioning of the genre as belonging equally to the native artist as much as to his European counterpart (Mitter 1994). This evidences a true closing in of the difference between natives and Europeans on the ground, although its recognition in official policy and exhibition awards was yet to come. Baroda shared its location with Bombay in the Western Presidency and the Bombay School of Art provided a formidable pool of formally trained portraitists for (p.99) Sayajirao’s collecting activity. These portrait artists established commercial studio practices and posed as the new register of professional salon artists.57 These shifts in the production locus strengthened the status of the indigenously produced academic portrait. It becomes clear that despite changing contexts to guide the collector and equally transient contexts to nurture portrait artists, for the consumer it remained a prestige genre that straddled the personal lifestyle context as well as the statewide modernization agenda associated with art education and exhibitions. A general overview of the imperial policy towards education and the establishment of art schools in particular serves our understanding of the pivotal position of academic portraiture vis-à-vis other genres. The foundation of artschool education lay in the larger official policy for English education. This policy aimed to introduce India to an English education system, so as to produce a large English-educated middle class to aid the British in the governance of the country.58 As part of this imperial project, English schools and colleges were established in the major cities of India, alongside art schools that were founded in Madras (1850), Calcutta (1854), Bombay (1857), and Lahore (1875). Art education was viewed as an instrument to inculcate Western sociocultural values among Indians. Despite this widely recorded view, the agenda for art education in the colony remained uneven in its founding mission as well as implementation. While several quarters saw a definite need to promote the ‘European high arts’ that were seen as completely lacking in the colony, other factions aspired to elevate the standards of traditional industrial and decorative arts. Fissured with differences, the agenda for art education played out differently at the four main schools, depending on the stewardship of the institution as well as response from students. While the Madras and Lahore schools catered more to the artisanal classes, the Bombay and Calcutta schools accommodated elite students who pursued the fine/high arts. The Bombay School especially became a reputable institution for academic portraiture and salon sculpture. Page 29 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts Art-school education created a hierarchy among various artistic genres and lent a prestigious position to academic oil portraiture in the Western Presidency. This position was fortified with economically higher considerations in the pursuit of the discipline: relatively higher examination charges, expenses incurred on art materials, and the language of (p.100) instruction that led English-educated and elite students to pursue the fine arts (Mitter 1994: 55, 58). These factors combined to form an aura of social and artistic prestige around art-school education in general and academic oil portraiture in particular. This aura extended to the market for portraits. Portrait painters are known to have charged rupees 100–200, whereas genre subjects fetched rupees 25 (Mitter 1994: 80). Now the indigenous portrait artist contributed to the consolidation of this coveted position due to the dual benefit of formal training and establishment of studios or commercial practice. Another important development that shared the context of art schools was the founding of art societies. Art societies were an extension of European institutions in India that were gradually taken over by Indians to serve their own needs, such as the diffusion of salon art (Mitter 1994: 65). The Bombay Art Society shared close links with the Bombay Art School; students found a place at the society’s annual shows beginning in 1889 (Sadwelkar 1989). The society became an important meeting ground for patrons and artists. Through a discussion of the Bombay Art School-trained Samuel Fyzee Rahamin, one will see how the art school and art society contexts groomed Sayajirao and augmented his collection. 2.4.1 Case Study: Samuel Fyzee Rahamin: Artist and Advisor at the Baroda Durbar, 1908–18

Samuel Fyzee Rahamin (1880–1965)59 engaged with Sayajirao as an artist and art advisor for a decade from 1908 to 1918. After his training at the Bombay Art School and prestigious apprentice with artists at the Royal Academy, Rahamin specialized in portraiture, landscape, and mural painting. He even enjoyed the rare opportunity to exhibit at the academy in 1906 (Mitter 1994: 100). By the 1911 Bombay Exhibition, Rahamin had already painted a few portraits of the members of the Gaekwad household and these were loaned to the exhibition by the khangi department. This loan included Portrait of His Highness Maharaja Saheb, Portrait of the Late Prince (Baroda Museum), Portrait of Prince Shivaji Rao, and Portrait of Shrimant Sampat Rao (Baroda Museum). In the capacity of an art advisor, Rahamin selected four other paintings of Ravi Varma: ArjunSubhadra, Kauns-Shakti, Radha-Krishna, and (p.101) Laxmi.60 Twenty-two articles from the Baroda Museum were also loaned for the exhibition.61 The presence of Rahamin’s works in the private collection of the Gaekwads and the Baroda Museum and much later in the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum shows a definite extension of consumption practices from the private chambers to Baroda’s museums, either through donation of works or sharing of artists for the making of both collections (Goetz and Goetz cited in Codell 2003: 133). The social trajectory of the academic portrait in India enjoyed a rising profile and Page 30 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts Sayajirao had accommodated the education of native artists, as noted in Charles Giron’s contract. The education of native artists and audiences was now assumed through the Baroda Museum, which was a distinct component of the statewide modernization plan. Thus Sayajirao’s consumption of visual traditions straddled the lifestyle context and statewide projects, thereby qualifying as a systematic ‘collecting practice’. This also marks the meeting of the royalist narrative and nationalist historiography through private collecting and its extension to public projects. As much as ‘consumption’ had moved to institutional spheres, so also grooming was not confined to informal contexts; it was undertaken by institutional spaces (Sadwelkar 1989). Rahamin, who was trained at the Bombay School, exhibited with the affiliated Bombay Art Society after his return to India. The presence of these two institutions in the Western Presidency informed Sayajirao about the artist. Later Rahamin tapped on this connection to facilitate the display of artworks from Baroda’s collection for the 1911 Bombay Exhibition. The shared context of art schools and art societies enriched the domain of private collecting and its participation at public exhibitions.

Part II: Collecting Salon Sculptures 2.5 Sculptures for Royal Residences and Public Spaces

Much like academic portraiture, salon sculpture, too, was acquired in the lifestyle context of hybrid residential spaces. Some of the earliest Euro-Indian mansions were built in Calcutta and saw a noticeable rise in European marble sculptures that were part of the Victorian ambience (p.102) created by the Calcutta elite (Mitter 1994: 268, 270). The consumption of sculpture was markedly different from that of portraits in the sense that there was no ready pool of itinerant sculptors who naturally exposed the Indian consumer to this genre. Instead, sculptural art was primarily facilitated through architects and agents to furnish new mansions. For instance, Messrs Henri Irigoin of Paris was tasked to source the best French sculptor to make a bust of Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner (r. 1887–1943) (Jaffer 2006: 23). It is also suggested that in the absence of the sitter, European sculptors crafted some early commissions based on wooden or clay models that were sent across by the maharajas. Raja Serfoji II of Tanjore appears to be the first Indian prince to commission a sculpture. He ordered a life-size figure of himself in marble from the studio of John Flaxman (1755–1826) (Jaffer 2006: 31). Contemporary print advertisements, too, would have enabled distance sourcing of sculptural works (Jaffer 2006: 273–4). Returning to Calcutta, the context for consumption may be attributed to the high Victoriana of the era. Likewise, Peleggi’s (2002: 34–6) framing of the consumption of sculpture by the fifth reign of the Siamese monarchy is part of an ‘omnivorous aesthetic’ that simply devoured everything Western to be displayed in the interior spaces without adhering to standards of taste. A sharp contraposition underlines systematic acquisitions in Baroda’s royal spaces as

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Collecting the High Arts opposed to the Siamese monarchy’s random selection of art objects including sculptures. In Sayajirao’s case, the sculptures were systematically selected to suit distinct themes that governed the order of furnishing of the Gaekwads’ royal palaces. Moreover, the modernization plan in the case of Baroda saw an augmentation of civic infrastructure that demanded new architectural projects such as schools, hospitals, gardens, and other recreational zones. These new spaces hosted European-style sculptures in their premises. These sculptural pieces completed the decor of interior spaces and the landscaping of open spaces. Specimens of sculptural art in public spaces are especially important as they exemplify how royal collecting effectively shaped patronage practices among sponsor-patrons and citizens of Baroda. Additionally, sculptures in Baroda were also taken to a second level by localizing their aesthetic to include native themes. The practice of localization closely followed the trajectory of paintings. (p.103) 2.6 European Sculptors at Baroda 2.6.1 Case Study I: Augusto Felici at the Baroda Durbar, 1893–7

Sculptor Augusto Felici (b. 1851)62 inaugurates the discussion of this genre. The case of Felici and his appointment at the Baroda Court from 1893–7 is comparable to that of the Swiss artist Charles Giron. Correspondence exchanged between the Foreign Department, Simla; the agent to the governor general at Baroda, Sir Harry Prendergast; and the dewan of Baroda, Lakshman Jagannath, illuminates a contract drawn out by the Huzur Cutchery for the appointment of Felici to state service for a period of three years and seeking approval of the foreign department.63 The following letter proves how maharajas made a case for the residency of foreign artists in the country: With reference to your office letter no. 13832 dated 19 December last, I have the honor to inform you that Signor Felici is a sculptor, practicing in Venice, and was recommended to His Highness the Maharajah when in Europe by Mr. Fillion, an Architect of Geneva who is acting as our agent for purchase of furniture in Europe. The accompanying letter (in original) and its translation in English received from Mr. Chisholm, being a recommendation in favour of Signor Felici, from the Mayor of Venice, testifies to the excellence of the Signor’s character and works.64 In addition to the ground created by the host collectors in India, the appointment of foreign artists required the backing of strong referees. Hence, the aforementioned letter also encloses a reference from the Mayor of Venice, Lorenzo Tripole. Extracts from the reference read thus: ‘I have the honour to present to Your Lordship Signor Augusto Felici, the most worthy of sculptors. He

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Collecting the High Arts is a native of Rome. He has been for many years resident in Venice where he is well known and his monuments much praised.’65 Correspondence with shipping agents and forwarders such as Tyabjee & Co., Bombay,66 records the delivery of Murano glassware and marble mosaic with eight accompanying Italian workmen. In the segment of painting, too, the Baroda royalty preferred portraits that marked descent from the Italian Renaissance. Architect F.A. Fillion had sourced copies of European masters on a previous occasion in 1891.67 He was also given (p.104) charge for the purchase of items including vases, statues, and furniture pieces in 1892.68 Similarly, Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner engaged Messrs Biddulph Rawlins in London and Messrs Henri Irigoin to source shopping articles, enamelled goods, bronzes, china glass, and sculptors in Europe (Jaffer 2006: 23). As an architect and advisor, Fillion took cognizance of the Italian decor theme and planned Felici’s sculptures as part of it from 1893.69 This combination of specialists, Italian furnishings, Renaissance naturalism, and Florentine masters strengthen the advent of salon sculpture in the lifestyle context of the Baroda palaces. While in Baroda, Felici worked in multiple genres. He painted wall and easel paintings, several of which dealt with Indian subjects, such as Gujarati Dancing Girl. He produced marble and bronze busts to fulfil the need to have sculptural portraits of the Gaekwads. Felici produced four key marble reliefs for the Lakshmi Vilas; these are interspersed with wooden balconies on the western side of the Durbar Hall. The reliefs depict muses, each holding a brush, lute, scroll, and a hammer. They are believed to represent painting, music, law, and engineering respectively (Sheikh 1997: 20). Even today similar reliefs are seen in other parts of the palace such as the portico that forms part of the main entrance to the Lakshmi Vilas. Felici’s adaptation of Indian subjects in bronze such as Indian Cheetah Tamer, (Gujarati) Lady with a Water Pot, and the famous Tanjore Dancing Girl produced a constellation of Indian themes in European naturalistic style. The animated stance and determined gaze of the cheetah and the young tamer are very perceptible; the intensity of the scene is unfalteringly rendered by Felici, making this one of his best sculptures in the Baroda collection. Another expanded robust composition sees two pairs of the cheetah and the keeper, making it a tableau. This expanded version is present in the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. In case of (Gujarati) Lady with a Water Pot, the facial modelling of the lady and her perfectly meek pose account for a real model who Felici must have engaged. These pieces point to Sayajirao’s or his architect Fillion’s refashioning of European-style sculptural technique to produce typically Indian subjects, a trend actively pursued among Bombay School sculptors too. Fillion and Felici’s experiment is comparable to Madhavarao and Sayajirao’s engagement with Tiroovengada Naidu and Ravi Varma’s skills as painters. Thus the palace staff displayed a by now well-groomed (p.105) (p.106) (p.107) acumen to employ European techniques to Indic themes. Sculptural art was Page 33 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts explored to give representation to two themes: portraits and genre subjects, once again resonant of the trend in painting. Portraits fulfilled the function of commemoration; genre scenes typically fulfilled the Indian collector’s aspiration to see Indic themes in scientific and naturalistic renditions, whether painting or sculpture. A conscious juxtaposition of the ‘European’ and ‘Indian’ pieces can be learnt from the distinct yet equal place accorded to Indian genre subjects and European reliefs in the palace decor during Sayajirao’s time.

Figure 2.9 Gujarati Dancing Girl, painted by Augusto Felici, c. 1893–7, oil on canvas. Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum.

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Collecting the High Arts

Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

Figure 2.10 Portico of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, marble relief by Augusto Felici, c. 1893–7. Courtesy of H.H. Maharaja Samarjitsinh Gaekwad. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

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Collecting the High Arts

Figure 2.11 Cheetah Tamer sculpted in bronze by Augusto Felici, c. 1893–7. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: MIP. 37/P.G.2.27/A. 5.2. Photographs: Manish Chauhan.

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Collecting the High Arts The placement of the European muses on the wall space interspersed with the balconies is noted. The central section of the hallway and its table, both made with ‘locally quarried material’, played host to the ‘Indian genre subjects’ sculpted by Felici. The royal guest Edward Weeden (1911: 26) paid careful attention to the details of decor back (p.108) (p.109) in 1911: ‘The (portico)70 hall is paved with very rare green marble of great beauty which is found only in the Gaekwar’s territory, and in the middle is a table of the same marble, at which His Highness can transact any pressing business that may await him on his return.’ This locally produced green marble was an important local resource as Weeden even visited the quarry during one of

Figure 2.12 A Lady with a Water Pot sculpted in bronze by Augusto Felici, c.

his tours with the royal retinue

1893–7. (Weeden 1911: 143).71 This Courtesy of the Department of Museums, schematic display of the Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not European, the native, and the to be reproduced without prior localized define a lengthy permission of the Director of Museums. continuum of experiments in Accession number: PG 2.22. Baroda’s modernization and the Photograph: Manish Chauhan. arrival of alternatives. Lastly, much like paintings, sculptures, too, were loaned to exhibitions, although in lesser volume. Despite Felici’s departure from Baroda, Sayajirao lent his works for display at the 1896 Bombay Art Society Exhibition (Mitter 1994: 72).

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Collecting the High Arts (p.110) 2.6.2 Case Study II: Derwent Wood—A Sculptor for Baroda City, c. 1907

Derwent Wood (1871–1926)72 is presented here as the second European sculptor to find representation at Baroda. Wood produced a landmark equestrian statue of Sayajirao, the famous Kalaghoda, which continues to grace the centrally located roundabout across Kamatibag in Baroda City. The bronze sculpture was commissioned by a group of citizens at the cost of rupees 60,000 to commemorate Sayajirao’s Silver Jubilee in 1907 (Diver 1943: 124; Sergeant 1928: 145–6). The pedestal bears the following line: ‘This statue was raised by

Figure 2.13 Portico of the main entrance to the Lakshmi Vilas. The picture shows Augusto Felici’s reliefs Tanjore Dancing Girl, Fakir, and Cheetah Tamer as well as the green marble and table seen by Edward Weeden in 1911. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

Highness’ grateful subject and admirers in India and beyond the seas in commemoration of his Silver Jubilee celebrated on the 5th March 1907, and in token of loyalty and appreciation of his ever progressive rule’ (Desai 1929: 60–1).73 The significance of this commission can be learnt from Wood’s publication of related articles in two issues of the famous Academy Architecture and Architectural Review.74 A preliminary head study for the larger sculpture is presently in the Baroda Museum. Ranjitsinhji Jam Saheb of Nawanagar commissioned the Parisian sculptor Herbert Haseltine to make a series of equestrian portrait sculptures of his ancestors (Jaffer 2006: 31). Contrary to how Wood may have come down to make the studies and final sculptures of Sayajirao in Baroda (which is why the head study is found at the Baroda Museum), Haseltine received a real Kathiawari horse by ship to render the portraits as authentic as possible! (Jaffer 2006: 31). In addition to the lifestyle context and its guidance by architects and agents, the Bombay School of Art provided institutional backing to Sayajirao’s collection of this genre, as seen next.

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Collecting the High Arts

Figure 2.14 Kalaghoda/Sayajirao’s equestrian statue sculpted in bronze by Derwent Wood (1907). Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

Figure 2.15 The plaque below Kalaghoda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

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Collecting the High Arts 2.7 Art School-trained Native Sculptors

Much like European-style portrait painting, Europeanstyle sculptural art became immensely popular among native practitioners. The presence of European sculptors was much less when compared to the volume of painters. Hence, besides the role of European architects and agents, the popularity of this genre may be attributed to the art schools in India, especially the Bombay School of Art, which trained some of the best sculptors and created a demand for their works through architectural projects and public commissions (Mitter 1994: 81). By 1867 and 1868, (p.111) (p.112) John Lockwood Kipling and John Griffiths, art instructors and later principals, introduced ‘decorative sculpture’ at the Bombay School (Mitter 1994:

Figure 2.16 Head study for Kalaghoda sculpted in bronze by Derwent Wood, c. 1907. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession Number: EP 222 (P.G. 2.10).

42). Full-fledged salon sculpture was not seriously taught as Photograph: Manish Chauhan. native students were seen more as part of a tradition of decorative sculpture and perhaps unable to master the salon style (Mitter 1994: 105). The availability of plaster casts advanced training in the field. The work of students became noticeable, as they were involved in architectural undertakings by the PWD in Bombay and conspicuous public commissions followed in the 1900s for sculptors such as B.V. Talim and G.K. Mhatre (Mitter 1994: 81). These commissions may be seen as part of the ‘statuemania’ at the turn of the century, which saw a proliferation of (p.113) sculptures honouring personalities in public spaces and commemorating their deeds or perpetuating their memories as part of nationbuilding in Asian locations (Peleggi 2002: 109).

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Collecting the High Arts 2.7.1 Case Study I: Ganpatrao Kashinath Mhatre: A Sculptor for Baroda City, c. 1918

Ganpatrao Kashinath Mhatre marked a successful debut at the Bombay Art Society in 1896, with the genre subject Going to the Temple that was received with immense critical acclaim and also earned him and the locally produced salon sculpture much exposure in the Magazine of Art, 1897 (Mitter 1994: 103, 106). It was edited by M.H. Spielmann who became art advisor to Sayajirao in 1918, and hence there is a possibility that he introduced Mhatre to Baroda. As explained by Partha Mitter, the genre of salon sculpture had remained a weaker component in the art school syllabus. Mhatre’s debut changed the course of sculptural art for the native practitioner. Subsequently, he exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 and the Delhi Durbar in 1903 (Mitter 1994: 107). Mhatre established a foundry in Bombay and produced large-scale sculptures that displayed mythological as well as genre subjects. Mhatre was commissioned by a philanthropist, Zaveri Vithaldas Chaturbhuj, to produce a marble bust of Sayajirao. This sculpture was funded as part of a charitable project that was not only inspired by Sayajirao’s modernization plan but also partnered one of the maharaja’s projects. On the occasion of the opening of the Patan Water Works by the municipality, with the support of a grant-in-aid and loan scheme sanctioned by Sayajirao, Chaturbhuj contributed a public garden with a fountain and a kindergarten school building at Patan. It was as part of this charitable project that he commissioned a marble bust by Mhatre. Sardar Sir Chinubhai of Ahmedabad unveiled this commemorative piece at the opening ceremony in the Chaturbhujbag in 1918 (Desai 1929: 184–6). Mhatre also produced an equestrian sculpture of Shivaji that was originally commissioned for the Shivaji Memorial Park in Poona. Due to differences between the Poona-based committee and the sculptor, the committee rejected the piece and Sayajirao supported the artist by buying the sculpture and placing it in the Committee Baugh (Kamatibag), to the (p.114) south side of the museum and picture gallery (Gaekwad 1989: 370–1).75 Gulammohammed Sheikh (1997: 20) establishes the date of this sculpture as 1934. Another Bombay-based sculptor, V.P. Karmarkar, together with G.K. Mhatre, produced a sculptural piece titled Brave Hunting Boy of Dhari, Amreli, which represents a village boy with a knife; it is supposedly a recalling of the boy’s fight with a tiger witnessed during one of Sayajirao’s hunting expeditions (Sheikh 1997: 20).

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Collecting the High Arts (p.115) 2.7.2 Case Study II: Fanindranath Bose—Baroda’s State Sculptor, 1920

Fanindranath Bose76 benefited of art education in Europe and made a marked presence at exhibitions in Britain. As a result, his works forayed into several European collections. Sayajirao invited Bose to produce eight sculptures for the Lakshmi Vilas gardens and two for the Baroda Gallery in 1920. Again, this commission may have been facilitated by Spielmann who was the maharaja’s art advisor then. In keeping with his expanding collection of copies of significant international works, Sayajirao commissioned Bose to make a copy of The End of the Day that was inspired by Jean Francois Millet (Codell 2003: 132) and The Hunter from sculptor-collector William Goscombe John’s collection (Mitter 1994: 117–18). In the

Figure 2.17 Brave Hunting Boy of Dhari, Amreli sculpted in bronze by V.P. Karmarkar and G.K. Mhatre. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior

absence of a bronze casting permission of the Director of Museums. foundry in Baroda, Bose Photograph: Manish Chauhan. completed the commission in Edinburgh (Mitter 1994: 118). Sayajirao also invited him to engage with the Fine Arts Faculty and named him the state sculptor (Sheikh 1997: 50). Bose used his ‘new sculptor style’ that ‘emulated Mercie’s small-scale statuettes, in which the taut, slightly twisted pose of the figures affords opportunity for the fullest display of modeled musculature and body work in rippling, reflective bronze’ (Mitter 1994: 117). This modelling can be appreciated in Bose’s Woman with a Pitcher. He also supplemented this technique with the stylistic feature of ‘broken surfaces’ on the statuettes; it was inspired by Rodin and Mercie (Mitter 1994: 117). Thus, avant-garde features were incorporated in the treatment of Indian subjects. Bose sculpted native subjects engaged in routine chores. This depiction of the mundane establishes a definite shift from the caste-based occupations or activities that were integral to Page 42 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts the Company School of painting. Instead of ‘caste’, the category of the ‘regional type’ with real models, distinct costumes, and backdrops became increasingly visible in the works of painters Tiroovengada Naidu and Ravi Varma to sculptors such as Fanindranath Bose and G.K. Mhatre. In addition to the above, Sayajirao commissioned Bombay School sculptors such as Phadke, Kolhatkar, Karmarkar, and Gokhale (Shah in Doshi 1995: 8). Native exponents of salon sculpture were actively supported by Sayajirao’s collecting practice that received advice from architects and advisors alongside a ready group of practitioners from the Bombay School of Art. (p.116) 2.8 Forging Links between Ideas, Artworks, Acquisitions, and Display

This chapter clearly evidences the position of European genres, chiefly academic portraiture and salon sculpture, as ‘prestige consumption’ in the new Euro-modern lifestyle Figure 2.18 Woman with a Pitcher context of elite colonial India. In sculpted in bronze by Fanindranath N. addition to this prestigious Bose. status, these two artistic Courtesy of the Department of Museums, traditions also qualify as Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not scientific and modern for the to be reproduced without prior native collector, who permission of the Director of Museums. acknowledges its natural, real, Accession number: PG 2.21 (MIP-49). (p.117) and lifelike quality and Photograph: Manish Chauhan. scale. Sayajirao’s commissions demonstrate how this larger space of European art was systematically reinscribed with Indian themes, techniques, and styles to localize it. Small experiments undertaken at the Baroda court redefine the larger life story of these foreign genres. Baroda’s projects did not lean towards revivalism of Indian art principles, or a rejection or emulation of European practices. Instead, artists aimed at mastering European techniques, adapting these to Page 43 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts indigenous ideas, and then cross-referencing a wide range of visual, performing, and literary art traditions alongside their own fields of travel and research. The latter helped to include sitters from diverse Indian communities and locations, their architecture, and costumes. Hence, Baroda’s experiments in high art bypassed the mere state of indigenizing a predominantly European space of aesthetics. Instead, they opened up this European practice to bring within its range several vernacular and regional aesthetic inputs to create a cosmopolitanism that doubled up as a pan-Indian expression. One has also demonstrated that during their own lifetime, these experiments found approval as India’s new national high art. Thus nationalism did not remain a mere ideological guidepost in Sayajirao’s practice but found practical expression. At a time when the establishment positioned the natives as recipients of European art, Sayajirao created an authentic and fiercely independent genre. Baroda’s orientation towards indigenization is located within what is viewed as a period of the rise of Renaissance naturalism or ‘occidental orientations’ (Mitter 1994). It also contests space with the Abanindranath Tagore-led Bengal School that was revivalist and sought to align with a pan-Asian orientalism.77 This larger backdrop of solely referencing European fine arts or a conscious rejection of European techniques and a return to Indian/Asian traditions helps to emphasize Sayajirao and his team’s assimilative strategies and their rearticulation. As a consequence, this study sets the tone to retrieve some alternative experiments that were in the making at the same time and that dilute the predominance of either the European or the Asian-Indian. Additionally, the successful emergence of Sayajirao’s national ‘high art’ is presented chiefly between 1877 and 1906, thereby predating it to the emergence of the Bengal School (1890), which is hitherto positioned as the premier national art movement in India (Guha-Thakurta 1992; Mitter 1994). (p.118) Sayajirao emerged as an exemplar in the paradigm of international collecting as he displayed well-groomed choices in the acquisition and representation of ‘content’, which in turn demonstrated active ‘affiliation’ with ideas of modernization, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism. This strong association of ideas qualify his ‘consumption patterns’ as a full-fledged ‘collecting practice’. Through a two-part framework, this chapter manages to first illuminate the background of each artistic genre and then chart the contributions made to the genre through its connection with the maharaja and his state’s projects. This two-part methodological approach suggested by Susan Pearce (1994: 2–3) for collection studies brings art genres in relation with the collector through individual commissions. Firstly, the idea of alternative modernity and cosmopolitanism, which undergird individual artworks and also affiliate them with each other and the collector, qualify the whole as a collection. Secondly, these artworks do not remain stand-alone; they affiliate with a set or series. These sets or series are also linked by shared ideas. Thirdly, this idea of alternative modernity, first conceived in the context of Sayajirao’s private Page 44 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts lifestyle, is systematically extended to statewide modernization plans such as the education of native artists, audiences, and native sponsors through engagement of European practitioners and museum displays. Fourthly, Sayajirao’s awareness of informal and formal contexts, which become the guiding force behind his consumption patterns, reveals well-informed sourcing of artists, planning of commissions, and their display. In addition to institutions and itinerant artists, this awareness was groomed by a shared social and professional network of resource persons who were based in Baroda or overseas. This narrative establishes Dewan T. Madhavarao as a deeply resourceful art advisor who placed artists such as Ravi Varma and Tiroovengada Naidu from far afield at the Baroda court. Likewise, architects, artists, and advisors such as F.A. Fillion and F.A.H. Elliot sourced a wide range of works from European masters to native practitioners. Through intelligent collaboration, like Raja Serfoji of Tanjore (r. 1798–1832), Sayajirao’s network cut across binaries of local/global, national/ colonial, and indigenous/European to facilitate diverse acquisitions.78 Furthermore, this network sourced art from the secondary market, that is, paintings and copies that were already made. Through direct commissions to artists, it also created a (p.119) primary market. Thus these systematically forged links between ideas, art series, and associated sourcing, consumption, and display methods qualify Sayajirao’s practice as collecting. Having qualified the historical actor as a collector, this chapter repositions Sayajirao and his team of resource persons as tastemakers and value arbiters in the international domain of exhibitions and collecting. As a private royal collector and head of state, the maharaja institutionalized his position as a regular lender to exhibitions. He seems to have understood the implications and advantages of the classification and display procedures for native artists, which in the end established them as artists of national repute with a distinct national art style. This role of exhibition-lender was backed by that of a prize sponsor to create value in favour of select genres. This proves an effective projection of nationally relevant art styles by the native collector-lender in the space of colonial exhibitions. Notes:

(1.) Academic portraiture is a genre that was popularized by the English Royal Academy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe. It was based on European naturalism or realism that involved figural drawing with the use of live models. It followed the principles of anatomy, perspective, and chiaroscuro very keenly. This technique had its origins in Renaissance Art beginning around AD 1400, which was governed by the new scientific and rational order. Hence this genre is also termed as academic realism and Renaissance naturalism. (2.) For a discussion on the picturesque and sublime, see Archer (1980), Barbier (1963), and Tillotson (2000).

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Collecting the High Arts (3.) For a history of British artists in India and Indian responses to European art, see Pal and Dehejia (1986). (4.) For a critique of Said’s methods and arguments, see Breckenridge and van der Veer (1993). (5.) Dehejia studies a Chola ‘goddess’ sculpture in the Freer Gallery, New York. The author proposes that the subject is a Chola queen, Sembiyan Mahadevi, idealized as divinity in the icon. This proposition is supported by the historical evidence of gifts of bronze portrait sculptures of the Chola royalty. To this, Dehejia adds Queen Sembiyan’s exceptional career as an arts patron, which qualifies her as a subject for portraits. She uses inscriptional evidence to build the context in which Sembiyan’s portrait was used, that is, the celebration of the queen’s birthday. The author attests how this ‘context’ of the royal procession facilitates ‘identification’ of the real subject in the goddess-like portrait (Dehejia 1998). (6.) See Appendix I for the artist’s biography. (7.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 128, File 31: ‘Correspondence with Merchants: Miscellaneous Merchants, Photographers’: Letter from: Val Prinsep, 2 December 1877; To: P. Melvill. (8.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 128, File 31: Letter 1532; From: Madava Row, Dewan’s Office, 3 December 1877; To: F.A.H. Elliot. (9.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 128, File 31: Letter 1579; From: Madava Row, Dewan’s Office, 3 December 1877; To: P. Melvill. (10.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 128, File 31: Letter From: F.A.H. Elliot, 15 December 1877; To: Madava Row. (11.) Example of an entry from C. Raja Raja Varma’s diary: Wednesday July 17 1901, ‘We went this morning with Bapuji to the Fort to see a wealthy Bania, a mill owner who wants his whole length portrait to be painted.… His son is an intelligent young man and is an amateur photographer. We mean first to take a photo of the old gentleman in the position in which we intend to paint him’ (Varma 1895–1906: 54). (12.) See Appendix I for the artist’s biography. (13.) The name is illegible in the archival correspondence. NAI: Foreign Department, Files 132–5: Internal, Part B, Simla, 1891: ‘Employment of Mr. C. Giron as Artist, Dec. 1891’: Letter from: E.S. Reynolds, Agent to the Governor General of Baroda, 23 November 1891; To: A. Tucker, Under Secretary to the Government of India, Foreign Department.

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Collecting the High Arts (14.) NAI: Foreign Department, Files 132–5: Letter from: E.S. Reynolds, Agent to the Governor General of Baroda, 23 November 1891. (15.) In 1843, the government of India organized a foreign department that oversaw relations with frontier areas, external states, and Indian princes. In 1914, this department was renamed the Foreign and Political Department. Because of the special relationship between the British crown and the princes, the governor general headed the foreign department; he was aided by a secretary who supervised its daily operations (Ramusack 2004: 99–100). (16.) NAI: Foreign Department, Files 132–5: Internal, Part B, Simla, 1891: Letter 1612; From: Colonel E.S. Reynolds, Agent to the Governor General of Baroda, 16 October 1891; To: The Secretary to the Government of India. NAI: Foreign Department, Files 132–5: Letter 1622; From: Manibhai J. Dewan, Huzur Cutchery, Baroda, 12 October 1891; To: Colonel E.S. Reynolds, Agent to the Governor General of Baroda. (17.) NAI: Foreign Department, Files 132–5: Memo 134, Memo of Conditions on which His Highness’ Government Desires to Engage the Services of M. Charles Giron and his Assistant, True Copy by Manibhai Jasbhai Dewan. (18.) Durost (1932: 43) explains how a child who is collecting automobile toys lays emphasis to add to the volume and thereby grow a series vis-à-vis appreciation of a singular toy. (19.) Saryu Doshi summarizes this Maratha School as appearing in the sixteenth century—after its initial disappearance at Ellora in the ninth or tenth century — in the form of miniature painting for the Islamic rulers of the Deccan. She regards the Maratha School as one being guided by ‘diverse stylistic influences: from the Rajput and Mughal courts in the north, from Andhra and Karnataka in the south and from Persia’. Since this genre did not gain support in the form of established ateliers, there was no sustained style of Maratha painting at any single court, except one that developed at Poona under the Peshwas and briefly at Kolhapur in the nineteenth century and under the influence of the Wodeyar kings of Mysore (Doshi 1985: 49). (20.) Cosmopolitan leaning is explained as an ‘attitude of openness’ in Gerard Delanty (2012: 2). (21.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: ‘Exhibitions: Poona Fine Arts Exhibition (1879–1896)’: Letter 34; From: T. Madava Row, Dewan’s Cutchery, 2 August 1878; To: T. Waddington, Honorary Secretary, Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona. See Appendix I for the artist’s biography.

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Collecting the High Arts (22.) The Census of 1901 puts the number of painters from Madura at 919. These painters belonged to the Naicker or Naidu clan and some among them enjoyed patronage at the Travancore Court (Ramachandran in Sharma 1993: 22). (23.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 34; From: T. Madava Row, Dewan’s Cutchery, 2 August 1878; To: T. Waddington, Honorary Secretary, Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona. (24.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 34; From: T. Madava Row, Dewan’s Cutchery, 2 August 1878; To: T. Waddington, Honorary Secretary, Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona. Memo 99 from T. Madava Row. (25.) This portrait is in the Hathi Hall of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace. (26.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 462; From: Madhavarao, Dewan’s Cutchery, 27 August 1881; To: Honorary Secretary, Western Indian Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona. (27.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 462; From: Madhavarao, Dewan’s Cutchery, 27 August 1881; To: Honorary Secretary, Western Indian Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona. (28.) Starting from the late 1880s, proliferation of this theme can be seen in the works of the Bombay Art School-trained artists such as M.F. Pithawala, Pestonjee Bomanji, and M.V. Dhurandhar (Mitter 1994: 81–94). In the present study, Naidu and Varma are positioned as the earliest exponents of this theme in oils. (29.) See Appendix I for the artist’s biography. (30.) Shakuntala Writing to Dushyanta was exhibited in Madras in 1878 and won the Governor’s Medal. This picture was purchased by the duke of Buckingham, the then governor of Madras. Sir Monier Williams used this painting as a frontispiece for his English translation of Kalidasa’s Shakuntala, bringing considerable international acclaim to the artist and creating a demand for Indian classical subjects (Varma 1964: 10). (31.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: ‘Exhibitions: India & Europe (1878–1884)’: Letter 3132; From: name illegible, Huzur Office, 19 January 1884; To: Manibhai Jasbhai. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Letter from: Ravi Varma, 27 January 1884. (32.) Varma’s Madras-based friend Aloo Khareghat became the model for the Parsi type in the work Going Out. See the author’s interview of Mary Clubwalla in Maholay-Jaradi (2011).

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Collecting the High Arts (33.) Ravi Varma won the following prizes for genre subjects in the decade of the 1870s and early 1880s: Nair Lady at Her Toilet, Governor’s Gold Medal at the Fine Arts Exhibition, Madras, 1873; unknown genre subject, Vienna Exhibition, 1873; Tamil Lady on a Sarabat, gold medal at the Fine Arts Exhibition, Madras, 1874; Nair Lady and Sita Bhoopravesham won the Gaekwad’s gold medal at the Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona, 1880 (Tampy 1934: 8, 10, 12–13); Nair Woman Tuning a Violin won the Gaekwad’s Prize for Best Oil Painting by a native Indian artist. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 5052; From: Raja Sir T. Madava Row, Dewan’s Cutchery, Baroda, (month illegible) 1882; To: The Honorary Secretary, Western India Fine Arts Society, Poona. Pestonjee Bomanjee of the Bombay School of Art was also a frequent prizewinner on the exhibition circuit for his depiction of Parsi life through domestic scenes (Maholay 2002: 19). (34.) A detailed list of Ravi Varma’s paintings in the Baroda collections is produced in Parimoo (1998: 70–88, 105–8). Of the total 40 paintings associated with the Gaekwad Collection in this list, 21 are mythological subjects: 10 are part of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace Collection and 11 are in the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. Many of these were commissioned as groups/series. (35.) The World’s Columbian Commission Award 1893, Chicago (USA), reproduced in Parsram Mangharam (2003: 271) and cited in Venniyoor (1981: 32). Varma’s diploma hailed his works as ‘illustrations of the life of the native people’ (Venniyoor 1981: 32). (36.) The idea of being marked or spotted is discussed in light of the response of a young boy Mahmud, who, while browsing a copy of the People of India (published between 1868 and 1875) at the India Office Library, London, was asked if he was a Hindustani (Indian). Through Mahmud’s blushing and affirmative response, he established that he was not one among the aborigines in the book but from another country. Clearly, the question posed to him was perceived by Mahmud as marking him, which the boy found insulting or embarrassing (Pinney 1997; Sinha 2008). (37.) Sayajirao’s deft manoeuvring across this colonial space becomes even more noteworthy when one compares the ground with the making of a national art by the Bengal School. To showcase the swadeshi works of the Bengal School, categories for native artists were systematically replaced by rubrics such as ‘pure oriental art’. Hence, at the level of display and documentation, a more relenting classificatory structure lent itself to the making of a ‘national’ art by the Bengal ideologues. Due to its conscious rejection of European naturalism, the Bengal School was not seen as a threat to the European high arts. (38.) ‘This series of ten paintings in oil colours by Ravi Varma, court painter to several presidencies in India, is of much ethnological value; not only do the faces Page 49 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts of the high caste ladies which are portrayed give the various types of localities, but the Artist’s careful attention to the details of costume and articles used in the social and ceremonial life he has depicted render the paintings worthy of special commendation’ (‘Certificate of Commendation’ reproduced in Venniyoor 1981: 32; Mangharam 2003: 271). A diploma certificate of ‘specific merit’ was awarded to the artist. ‘The series of well-executed paintings give a good idea of the progress of instruction in art. They are true to nature in form and colour and preserve the costumes, current fashions and social features’ (Venniyoor 1981: 32). The very fact that the certificate mentions ‘true to nature in form and colour’ means they achieved realism, the yardstick that governed Western classical art; ‘true to nature’ was precisely the characteristic found wanting in Indian high art all along since it was perceived to be teeming with multi-limbed characters. To achieve a high-art tradition and rectify their many anomalies, Indian artists were set on the path of European instruction (Mitter 1977). To understand British attitudes towards Indian art and architecture, see also Asher and Metcalf (1994); Metcalf (1994). (39.) The official policy for education and the establishment of art schools was geared towards the creation of a coveted place for European salon arts that led to a resultant tacit classification of the indigenous arts as lowbrow. Also, judging by the Western standards of high art, it was perceived that there was a complete absence of high-art traditions India. This led to the idea that all art practices in India were traditional, industrial, and decorative, and all practitioners were artisans. Thus there was a continued sustenance of the binary between European and native. For a detailed discussion on European views about Indian art, see Mitter (1977). (40.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Letter from: Manibhai Jasbhai, Bhuj, Cutch, 8 January 1884; To: Seytoo Raoji. (41.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Letter 3132; From: name illegible, Huzur Office, 19 January 1884; To: Manibhai Jasbhai. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Letter from: Ravi Varma, 27 January 1884. (42.) Bhavanrao, the prince of Aundh, was sketched at Varma’s Bombay studio. Later this sketch was used to depict Dushasana in Draupadi Vastraharaṇ (Pratinidhi 1946: 474). A swordsman drawn from a Maharashtrian model was later rendered as King Rukmangada in Mohini and Rukmangada (Tampy 1934: 40). (43.) Varma’s interest in engaging scholars to learn Sanskrit literature and treatises is documented in his biographies (Rajagopal in Sharma 1993: 131). (44.) Part of the collection of Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery, Mysore.

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Collecting the High Arts (45.) For a summary of Ravi Varma’s education, see Maholay-Jaradi in Parimoo and Sarkar (2009: 43). Varma’s education saw emphasis on the classical texts in Sanskrit and Malayalam, epics, dance-drama traditions such as Thullal and Kathakali. That Varma was definitely influenced by the Maha Vajra Bhairava Tantra (Nair in Sharma 1993: 5) suggests that he may also have been influenced by the theories of the Chitralakshana, the Vishnudharmottaram, and so on, among other texts like Bharata Muni’s Natyashastra and Nandikesvara’s Abhinayadarpanam, the contents of which Varma would have been familiarized with through his Kathakali training (Kumar in Sharma 1993: 61). Nandikesvara’s Abhinayadarpanam also prescribes the suggestion of sex, race, sect, and class as part of the aharya abhinaya, or the attendant paraphernalia (Ghosh 1975: 13; Maholay 2000: 8). A lesser-known aspect of Varma’s engagement with poetry and music was that he wrote Sanskrit and Malayalam verse during his travels and set them to music; one such collection is the Maanasa Yathra (A Journey through the Mind) (Raja 2002: 422). (46.) Given Varma’s engagement with Kathakali and Thullal, Maholay-Jaradi analyses the facial expression, hand gestures, and position of the feet of Varma’s protagonists to demonstrate how keenly he employed the ‘treble structure’ of Indian classical dance in his compositions. Kanak Rele’s theory of body kinetics is also employed here to analyse the geometrical patterns formed by the limbs and bodies of Varma’s characters on canvas. This analysis shows a definite influence of the classical dance-drama traditions such as Kathakali on Varma’s compositions (Maholay-Jaradi in Parimoo and Sarkar 2009: 43–6). (47.) In their discussion of modern art in different locations of Asia, Melissa Chiu and Benjamin Genocchio present the case of Indonesia. After the Dutch and Japanese occupations, Indonesian artists, from 1907, turned to local performing and visual arts such as wayang kulit (shadow puppets), sculptures of the Borobudur temples, and Javanese dances to formulate a national painting style. Ravi Varma’s counterparts in Indonesia were Kusuma Affandi (1907–1990), S. Soedjojono (1914–1986), and Hendra Gunawan (1918–1983) (Chiu and Genocchio 2010: 15). (48.) The preliminary pencil sketch of Mohini and Rukmangada preserved at the Sri Chitra Art Gallery, Trivandrum, is invaluable to comprehend the injection of stylization in the poses of Varma’s characters. Clearly, here the positioning of his characters keeps pace with the conventions of stylization as seen in the classical dance styles. Here, the application of the cari is discerned, that is, drawing attention to foot contact with the earth and exploration of space (Vatsyayan 1974: 16). This cari brings the waist, hips, thighs, and feet in a line with the action suggested to heighten the mood and movement (Maholay-Jaradi in Parimoo and Sarkar 2009: 44).

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Collecting the High Arts (49.) Partha Mitter’s study of the Bombay and Calcutta art scenes of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is described as one of occidental orientations in their heavy leaning towards European art genres, colonial art schools, and their attendant cultures of taste and reception (Mitter 1994). (50.) ‘They were publicly exposed for some days and immense crowds of people assembled from all parts of Bombay Presidency to see the paintings. They produced quite a sensation for a period, for it was the first time that subjects from the great Indian epics had been depicted on canvas so truthfully and touchingly …’ (Ravi Varma: The Indian Artist quoted in Venniyoor 1981: 29–30). (51.) The history painting school emerged between the post-Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century. It usually depicted a climactic moment from a biblical or mythological scene. After mid-eighteenth century, contemporary history scenes, too, came to be included in the paradigm. History painting occupied a premier position amongst genres of painting and was viewed as the equivalent of the ‘epic’ in literature. Perhaps this is why collectors such as Sayajirao aspired to formulate India’s own history painting in the new medium of oil on canvas that embraced the technique of realism. Moreover, they afforded the scope to invoke tradition, history, and nostalgia. (52.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 17, Daftar 29, File 17: Huzur Order; From: Dewan Manibhai Jasbhai, 3 February 1891; To: V.V. Samarth. (53.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 17, Daftar 29, File 17: Huzur Order; From: Dewan Manibhai Jasbhai, 3 February 1891; To: V.V. Samarth. (54.) Part of the collection of Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery, Mysore. (55.) In a private collection. (56.) This dual identity was perhaps more relevant for the masses before the right-wing majoritarian view on Hussain’s works, their interventionist modes, and shaping of audience responses in 2006, which led the artist to spend his last years in exile. For an understanding of the ‘Hussain Affair’ and the challenges posed to India’s narrative of secularism and nationalism, see Zitzewitz (2014). (57.) M.F. Pithawala, Pestonjee Bomanji, and Jehangir Lalkaka were among the artists with studio practices in Bombay (Maholay 2002: 19, 27, 68–9). (58.) Lord Macaulay, on the laying of the foundation of the British-Indian educational system, aimed at bringing up a class ‘who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect’ (Macaulay in Desai and Nair 2005: 130). (59.) See Appendix I for the artist’s biography. Page 52 of 55

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Collecting the High Arts (60.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 3: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions in India and Europe, Part III 1890–1911’: Letter 1519; From: Narottam Morarjee Gokaldas, Secretary to Executive Committee of Old Bombay, 20 October 1911. (61.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 3: Letter 1519; From: Narottam Morarjee Gokaldas, Secretary to Executive Committee of Old Bombay, 20 October 1911. (62.) See Appendix I for the artist’s biography. (63.) NAI: Foreign Department: Diary No. 124-I, Baroda, 1890: ‘Notes and Orders: Employment of Mr. Augusto Felici, 1889–1890’: No. 9158; From: The Agent to the Governor General, 29 August 1890. NAI: Foreign Department: Diary No. 124-I, Baroda, 1890: Letter 3742 with enclosed contract conditions; From: Laxman J. Dewan, Huzur Cutchery, Baroda, 16 December 1889; To: General Sir H. D. Prendergast, Agent to the Governor General, Baroda. (64.) NAI Foreign Department: Diary No. 124-I, Baroda, 1890: Letter 487; From: Manibhai J. Dewan, Huẓūr Cutchery, Baroda, 16 August 1890; To: General Sir H.D. Prendergast, Agent to the Governor General, Baroda. (65.) NAI Foreign Department: Diary No. 124-I, Baroda, 1890: Letter from: Mayor of Venice, Lorenzo Tripole, 24 January 1890. (66.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 129, File 39: ‘Correspondence with Merchants, Etc: Correspondence with Messrs Tyabji & Co. (1888–1892)’: Letter from: Manibhai Jasbhai, Huzur Cutchery, Baroda, 5 August 1890; To: Messrs. Tyabji & Co., Bombay. (67.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 17, Daftar 29, File 17: Huzur Order of 3 February 1891. (68.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 17, Daftar 29, File 17: Five Memos with Letter from: F.A. Fillion, Paris, 13 June 1892; To: V.V. Samarth. (69.) In keeping with his generation, Maharaja Yeshwantrao Holkar II of Indore (r. 1926–61) chose a modernist theme for the Manik Bagh Palace (Jaffer 2006: 24). (70.) Weeden refers to a portico and also describes sculptures of the Tanjore Dancing Girl, the Fakir, and the Indian Cheetah Tamer in the same area. Hence the ‘hall’ is indeed the one belonging to the portico of the main entrance of the Lakshmi Vilas, which shows the three sculptures in photograph 2.13 (Weeden 1911: 26).

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Collecting the High Arts (71.) We will unravel the further significance of this local, indigenous green marble and Sayajirao’s efforts to promote it in the international trail of exhibitions in Chapter 4. (72.) See Appendix I for the artist’s biography. (73.) This has also been verified against the original sculpture. (74.) Academy Architecture and Architectural Review was founded in 1896 as a publication for the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Gradually, it included aspects of archaeology, design, and architecture in its discussions. See http:// www.architectural-review.com/about-the-ar/history/ar-history/8603298.article (accessed on 24 May 2011). (75.) Perhaps Barbara Ramusack (2004: 146) refers to the same sculpture when she discusses Sayajirao funding a memorialization project dedicated to Shivaji as part of a larger nationalist effort to identify national icons. However, the acquisition of this piece may have been truly driven by the collector’s interest to support the artist in the event of rejection by the Poona Committee. (76.) See Appendix I for the artist’s biography. (77.) In c. 1890s, under the stewardship of Abanindranath Tagore, the Bengal School emerged to formulate an authentic expression of nationalism. This school rejected representational art or European naturalism and veered towards orientalism under the influence of the Japanese ideologue Okakura Kakuzō. The practitioners chose Indian literary and mythological themes and rendered them in distinctly Indian or Asian techniques such as those of manuscript painting, Japanese brush technique, and so on in a bid to create a pan-Asian aesthetic (Mitter 1994: 265; Guha-Thakurta 1992: 167–70). (78.) Indira Peterson studies the influence of the European cabinet of curiosity on the science and art collection of Maharaja Serfoji II of Tanjore. She especially locates Serfoji’s practice in the cross-currents of Pietist Christianity, Enlightenment ideas, and Indian responses, thereby contributing to the history of ideas through collecting. The same case study of Serfoji is nuanced as Savithri Preetha Nair draws on Bruno Latour’s definition of a ‘centre of calculation’ to demonstrate how Serfoji maintained a network of individuals and institutions, which cut across binaries such as centre/periphery, local/global, national/ colonial, and traditional/modern to further his collection. With the help of this network, despite its peripheral location, Tanjore produced useful scientific knowledge to modernize itself. Nair also demonstrates localization of scientific practices as Serfoji rejects the then popular museum-based knowledge production in favour of an alternative field-centred episteme in his well-groomed collecting practice (Nair 2005: 279, 281–2, 285–6; Peterson 1999).

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Collecting the High Arts

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

Courting Craft, Design, and Industry Machines, Crafts, and the Locations of Modernity Priya Maholay-Jaradi

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.003.0003

Abstract and Keywords This chapter argues for the participation of Baroda’s crafts and Indian artisanal design in a self-styled indigenous economy of craft-education and craftproduction and, through it, in the global capitalist order. Given Maharaja Sayajirao’s and his dewan Madhavarao’s orientation towards making the crafts globally competent, caste-based artisans and other practitioners are relocated in domains of the royal palace, technical education/polytechnics, and commercial workshops. Despite their colonial and Euro-American import of capital and technology, these sites of societal modernization absorb locally relevant crafts and artisanal skills to reappear as examples of indigenous and alternative cultural modernities. Additionally, royal commissions to European firms and participation at exhibitions increase the visibility of Indian design; the latter’s recognizable presence promotes several Baroda crafts. Consequently, the European firms’ referencing of Indian design to enhance machine-produced goods is explained as the native collector’s and craftsmen’s alternative contribution to European capital, modernity, and its aspects of taste-making. Keywords:   interstice, craft/craftsman, artisan, design, polytechnic, industry, technical education, industrial-school pedagogy, mechanization, luxury goods, hybrid(ity)

This chapter focuses on the roles of Dewan T. Madhavarao and Sayajirao in expanding the experimental scope of Baroda’s crafts alongside other Indian craft genres. In addition to making new workspaces, materials, and techniques available to the craftsmen, their promotion in regional and international markets Page 1 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry is focused upon. Simultaneously, the positioning of Baroda’s practitioners and craft genres in recognized institutes of technical education within and outside Baroda is facilitated. Traditional artisans continue to work at the palace and in their caste-based guilds; simultaneously, many relocate to mechanized spaces such as polytechnics, workshops, and even industry. The promotion of crafts within this crucible of apprenticeship and international markets demonstrates a firm and comfortable relationship between tradition, technology, and capital to promote a statewide plan for artisanal welfare and economic progress. Like the high-art practitioners discussed in Chapter 2, the entire gamut of craft genres and craftsmen find active representation at national and international exhibitions. At the theoretical level, this plot first advances the idea of alternative modernity, which views the application of Euro-American bourgeois systems such as technical education, polytechnics, and commercial workshops in a locally viable model that can accommodate the craftsman and his hereditary skills. Consequently, in a different take, after Dilip Gaonkar (2001: 1–2, 15), cultural modernity, that is, Baroda’s art and craft domain, is not viewed as a (counter) response to the state’s societal (p.130) modernization. Instead the art–craft domain is born within the structures of societal modernization. Taking a cue from Amin Jaffer (2006), Arindam Dutta (2006), and Abigail McGowan’s (2009) scholarship, the second part of this chapter keenly examines the promotion of typical Baroda design and generic Indian design at museums, exhibitions, and commercial workshops and firms. Through royal and state commissions displayed in the aforementioned domains, not only does Indian design find active promotion, but through its recognizable presence, Baroda’s and other Indian crafts also become increasingly identified. Indian design’s global visibility leads to a reassessment of European mass-produced industrial goods and their aesthetic failures. Thus in the end, the royal collector and statesman activates local crafts to become internationally competent and brings to the Western landscape of industry-based modernization an alternative, nonWestern standard—that of superior design. Thus this chapter contends that alternative modernities and Euro-American modernity are simultaneous and constitutive of each other; a seemingly monolithic and unitary Western modernity and capital carries within it the nuances and differences of modernities from plural, peripheral locations. Theoretically, following Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000, 2002), Timothy Mitchell (2000), and Rebecca Brown (2009), this narrative takes the experiment of the alternative beyond its peripheral geopolitical location to contribute to Euro-American modernity and its refinement.

Part I: Craftsmen at Polytechnics, Workshops, and Industry 3.1 Exhibition of 1851: Indian Crafts vs British Manufactures

The significance of Indian craft and design was increasingly pitched against the rising profile of Euro-American mass-produced goods in nineteenth-century Britain and India. Contrasting pavillions at the Great Exhibition of 1851 set Page 2 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry several ideological cross-currents in motion. Thus the exhibition opened to a mixed public reception, but its most widely endorsed and long-lasting verdict— which had a bearing on the making of India’s national art—was one that lent high credibility to Indian design, while giving generous currency to European processes of production. Saloni Mathur explains the rationale that supported this development: ‘This allowed for a Victorian assessment of Indian cultural objects, their aesthetic and (p.131) utilitarian values, without challenging the prevailing ideological framework of European dominance and industrial progress’ (2007: 10). Clearly, this verdict owed its rationale to the founding ideology of orientalism, its essentialist framework, and indeed to its continuing presence in the rule of difference nurtured by the raj. While the Great Exhibition of 1851 is seen as the most graphic juxtaposition of machine-made Euro-American goods with superior handcrafted objects from the colonies (Tarapor 1980: 58), the appreciation of Indian craftsmanship and design in the Western world is said to have gained root two centuries earlier (Mitter 1977: 221). In a long-standing problem, European travellers, collectors, artists, and ideologues could not appreciate Indian painting and sculptural traditions through the lens of European aesthetic ideals (Mitter 1977: 6–10).1 However, Indian craftsmanship and design as seen in architecture and the decorative arts were the first to find endorsement in the European world for their colour and form (Mitter 1977: vi, 221). Their neutral and non-referential nature did not require any particular contextual reading. Thus collecting Indian decorative objects became popular in Europe through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and subsequent exhibitions and reviews of Indian design were based on these private collections (Mitter 1977: vii, 221, 228–30). In a continuing trajectory, the appreciation of Indian design may be located on two axes in the metropole: the British Arts and Crafts and Design Reform movements and the cause of British industry espoused by the Department of Science and Art (DSA). By the 1830s, British designers and critics who led the British Arts and Crafts and Design Reform movements used the standard of Indian design to critique uniform British mass-produced goods.2 The non-illusionistic, flat, and shadowless patterns in Indian crafts, their wide range, and their critical application to materials and forms were highlighted in the interest of bettering British manufactures.3 To facilitate large-scale and aesthetic production of massproduced goods, the DSA, established under the Britain’s Board of Trade (BoT), served the cause of Indian design, especially after 1851 (Dutta 2006: 2–7, 125, 129). Both these movements initiated workshop-style schools to train British manufacturers and designers, built collections of industrial and decorative arts in Britain and the colony, and encouraged documentation and cataloguing of Indian craft and design. Hence, the taste for Indian design (p.132) was not renewed per se in the colonial period. Instead, the discussion of Indian crafts increasingly became a part of new pedagogical, commercial, and critical

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry processes initiated in the metropole and colony (Dutta 2006; McGowan 2009; Mitter 1977; Tarapor 1980). The colony, too, made crafts and design an important pitch for its nationalist projects. Social and political leader Dadabhai Naoroji, economist-bureaucrat R.C. Dutt, social reformer Ram Mohan Roy, and the crusader of Indian art George Birdwood highlighted a climate of ‘national’ deprivation and a threatened artisanal industry in the wake of industrialization and cheap massproduced goods in Indian markets (Mitter 1977: 236; Tarapor 1980: 60). This led to constructive lobbying from Indian and British crusaders to set up schools to promote the crafts, groom Indian patrons to appreciate better finish and form, and adapt household items of Indian design to a European market (Tarapor 1980: 60). Together, nationalists and the colonial establishment founded the four art schools (Madras, Calcutta, Bombay, and Lahore) to salvage and promote traditional crafts. Local, regional, and international exhibitions, too, dedicated segments to the promotion of Indian crafts. Exhibitions included the production of catalogues that were a product of field research and documentation. In turn, research and documentation were part of the larger frame of ‘investigative modalities’ undertaken by the British administration to create a knowledge base of its colony’s people and resources, including the crafts and traditional industries of India (Cohn 1996: 4–5). George Birdwood represented foundational efforts in the documentation of Indian crafts in his textual survey The Industrial Arts of India (1880).4 This survey emphasized the purity of Indian artisanship that was contextualized in extensive research on classical texts, mythology, local deities, festivals, and folklores. To complement Birdwood’s stance, Ananda Coomaraswamy celebrated the cause of craftsmanship in The Indian Craftsman (1909). He appreciated the caste-based structures of work in India (Coomaraswamy cited in McGowan 2009: 81). Thus crusaders of Indian crafts such as Birdwood, Coomaraswamy, and the British design reform’s key player, William Morris, credited the context of village life and the guild system for the superiority of Indian design, technique, and artisanal autonomy. As a result, the protectionist and revivalist discourse advocated a safeguarding of the original contexts of craft production. That (p. 133) art schools such as Bombay and Calcutta did not meet this aspiration and instead became thriving centres of European-style fine arts is covered in Chapter 2. The Madras School and Mayo School at Lahore supported the local crafts, albeit in far-removed European-style modes of training. Much like Macaulay’s English education programme, the plan for art schools, too, was to ‘set the natives on a process of European improvement’ (Trevelyan quoted in Edwardes, cited in Tarapor 1980: 60). In addition to the aforementioned developments led by the establishment and the nationalists, the site of traditional industries and commercial workshops in the colony also saw strong support for the crafts. European and Indian Page 4 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry commercial firms that engaged native craftsmen under European supervisors and mechanized modes of production supported contemporary experiments in artisanal design and their application to Indian and European forms. These firms thus located craft, craftsman, and design in industry and its burgeoning segment of brochures and sales catalogues. The indigenous crafts, craftsmen, and design became cornerstones in the idea of nationalism as well as metropolitan industrialization. Their increased visibility internationally may be understood through Abigail McGowan’s (2009: 96, 99– 100, 101, 109, 146) idea of ‘crafts difference’. McGowan argues that the national interest of either preservation or reformation ultimately courted the idea of ‘exchange of best practices’ among Indian craftsmen and British industry facilitated by native leadership. Likewise, according to Arindam Dutta (2006), the metropolitan interest, too, advocated a synthesis of Indian design and British manufactures. Indian design principles were subjected to European methods of production to be placed in multiple visual domains of pattern books, exhibitions, catalogues, and commercial goods. Indeed then, a range of metropolitan and colonial participants garnered support for the indigenous crafts. Sayajirao is identified as a reformist supporter within the pro-industry camp by McGowan (2009: 187–9), but this chapter takes that thread forward to weave a story of a fine negotiation between Baroda’s societal modernization—that is, its proindustry bourgeois modernity—and age-old traditions that was introduced in Chapter 1. The next section demonstrates how the artisanal cause found support at the royal court and was extended to state-sponsored projects. (p.134) 3.2 Craft Experiments in the Palace

Archival data demonstrates the relocation of caste-based hereditary artisans from the traditional industries to the armature of the royal Baroda court due to Dewan T. Madhavarao.5 3.2.1 Case Study I: Neelakandan Asari in the Employ of Dewan Madhavarao, c. 1878

The first discussion is dedicated to the ivory craftsman Neelakandan Asari from Travancore. ‘Neelacunden’ was in the ‘private employ’ of Dewan T. Madhavarao.6 From the archival records and dates, it can be conjectured that this artisan, referred to as ‘Neelacunden’, is Neelakandan Asari, the son of the Travancore-based master craftsman Kochu Kunju Asari. Among some landmark commissions, Neelakandan assisted his father in the making of the famous ivory throne during the reign of Uthram Thirunal Marthanda Varma (1847–60) that was also loaned to the Great Exhibition of 1851. Neelakandan Asari was a friend of Ravi Varma and a close acquaintance of Dewan T. Madhavarao.7 Like artists Tiroovengada Naidu and Ravi Varma, Neelakandan may have been taken along to Baroda by T. Madhavarao, or he may have been represented from the dewan’s cutchery in Baroda, which is the address for all correspondence regarding Neelakandan. While Naidu was ‘in the service of the Baroda Court’,8 Neelakandan is said to have been in Madhavarao’s ‘private employ’,9 and there Page 5 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry is no qualification for the Trichinopoly artisan who is discussed next.10 However, works of all three artists are requested to be returned to Madhavarao’s Baroda address.11 It is important to note that archival records mark Naidu and Neelakandan’s presence, whether actual or representational, at Baroda at the same time, that is, 1878. They also enjoyed participation in the same exhibitions.12 Ten articles made by Neelakandan were loaned to the Fine Arts Exhibition of Poona in 1878 by Baroda. These include: (a) four paper knives, (b) an umbrella handle, (c) a comb (Swamy pattern),13 (d) a paperweight with a group representing Maharaja Holkar on an elephant, (e) a group of dogs in a chase, (f) a parrot on a tree, (g) a bookshelf with ivory blades on an ebony plate.14 There is a possibility that the artisan sojourned in Indore, while Madhavarao served Maharaja Holkar from (p.135) (p.136) 1873 to 1875 and the paperweight representing Maharaja Holkar on an elephant may have been produced there. On the other hand, this compositional theme may be a reproduction from an original pictorial/photographic representation of Maharaja Holkar in Madhavarao’s personal collection. The paperweight has not been identified but another, larger ivory model that could be a replica of the paperweight is seen today in the Baroda Museum. The practice of making replicas in a larger size or expanded form is also noted in Chapter 2 in the Indian Cheetah Tamer by Augusto Felici. One tamer and a cheetah grow into a tableau of two tamers and two cheetahs. Neelakandan definitely enjoyed his referee and connoisseur Madhavarao’s support to innovate in the medium of ivory. He produced articles that ranged from the utilitarian to the decorative, often adopting European forms such as a bookshelf. One sees how the artisan adapted the Swami pattern, traditionally represented on silverware, in ivory work. The reconfiguration of materials such as ebony and ivory is also a mark of Page 6 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry customized crafts afforded by Figure 3.1 Ivory model of an elephant the domain of royal with howdah by an unknown artist consumption. The depiction of (purported to be Neelakandan Asari). royal subjects on these items Courtesy of the Department of Museums, was also made possible due to Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. the courtly patronage that Accession number: A.17.144. Neelakandan enjoyed. Lastly, Photograph: Manish Chauhan. these reconfigured works were shown at exhibitions due to Sayajirao and Baroda State’s position as a collector and lender. While this discussion does not directly point to the modernization of crafts, it suggests a widening of the experimental scope of traditional crafts in terms of design, material, and technique. This case study also demonstrates representation of crafts at colonial exhibitions. 3.2.2 Case Study II: Trichinopoly Mica Painter at the Baroda Durbar, c. 1878

The second discussion is dedicated to a painter from Trichinopoly who worked with the medium of mica or talc. Trichinopoly was a premier centre for mica painting in south India due to its proximity to the mine at Cuddapah (now Kadapa) (Archer and Parlett 1992: 193–4). In the east, Murshidabad, Patna, and Benares produced this art (Archer and Parlett 1992: 193). Traditionally, mica paintings were made to preserve tracings of family paintings (Archer and Parlett 1992: 193). However, in (p.137) the colonial era, there was a shift from the traditional context of practice. Artists produced standard sets of paintings that derived their themes from the popular Company School of painting. Caste and occupational types, festivals and rituals, gods, and floral and faunal themes were now painted for sale to British patrons (Archer and Parlett 1992: 194). Trichinopoly mica painting marked its presence at the 1851 exhibition with the display of a fine set of four volumes called Trichinopoly Exports (1850) (Archer and Parlett 1992: 194). The recognition of this genre as worthy of display at exhibitions and its popularity among European patrons is noteworthy. The genre must have produced its share of exemplary exponents and one such exponent may have been introduced by Madhavarao to Baroda. Madhavarao sent the works of this artist to the Fine Arts Exhibition in Poona in 1878: this loan included 11 large paintings on mica (11 × 8 inches) and 12 small paintings on mica (8 × 6 inches).15 This mica painter, too, shared his tenure with Tiroovengada Naidu and Neelakandan Asari at Baroda. Moreover, just as Neelakandan’s family had marked their presence at the 1851 exhibition with the display of the ivory throne, mica painting, too, established itself at the same exhibition. It is not an accident that Madhavarao brought these two practitioners who had either personally, or through their genres, found mention at the prestigious 1851 display and since gained popularity. The consumption sphere afforded by the Baroda court, which included the royalty and high-ranking officials such as Dewan T. Madhavarao, facilitated the presence of these artisans Page 7 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry in the state and their representation at exhibitions. Much like Baroda State’s repeated loans of Varma’s mythological works to exhibitions and their eventual recognition as an autonomous genre, these loans of artisanal crafts and their endorsement by the native collector led to their qualification as independent genres. As a result, mica painting found a place as an independent category in E.B. Havell’s report on the arts and industries of Madras in 1885–8 (Archer 1992: 194). Baroda may not have been the sole lender of mica painting, but the court’s contributory role towards tastemaking and value ascription for this genre is striking. Once again, this discussion does not contribute directly towards the formulation of an indigenous modernity in the crafts. However, it points towards the Baroda durbar’s interest in the crafts and their representation at exhibitions alongside the high arts. As much as Madhavarao sought to introduce art and crafts from (p.138) other parts of India to Baroda, he also worked towards the improvement of local Baroda crafts. 3.2.3 Case Study III: Local Baroda Pottery, 1877–87

Examples of Tiroovengada Naidu, Neelakandan Asari, and the mica painter testify to Madhavarao’s active presence as a resource person for the royal palace’s collecting practice in the late 1870s. The file dedicated to ‘Industries: Pottery’ records three case studies between 1877 and 1887 that demonstrate the introduction of modern scientific processes in the making of local Baroda pottery.16 This data especially reveals Madhavarao’s seminal efforts towards the modernization of traditional industries. It provides insights into the foundational basis of Sayajirao’s continued commitment to the local crafts and their relocation within a modernizing agenda. In 1877, Madhavarao invited an accomplished native workman from Lucknow. The proposed plan for training, target artisan-trainees, materials for clay modelling, educational and sales components of the programme, and other issues can be learnt from a memo prepared by Madhavarao. He proposed to position the Lucknow workman as a teacher under the order of the principal of the Native Science College of Baroda. He proposed that the art be imparted to at least a dozen local candidates almost immediately. Bearing in mind the caste dynamics, Madhavarao mentioned that the pupils could be selected from those castes who gained livelihood by working in the medium of clay, such as potters and toymakers. He suggested a cross section of young and old pupils so that the older ones, who already possessed knowledge of clay-modelling, could master the new forms. Madhavarao also proposed the institution of two scholarships and a waiver of fees to facilitate easy enrolment. He expressed his desire for a group of personally selected objects to serve as standard models for training through display at provincial museums. Additionally, he regarded the Lucknow workman as an agent to augment this body of work with fresh pieces. Together, these would serve as standard designs/items against which visitors could place purchase orders. He suggested the import of European plaster of Paris in due course to prepare models and support better guidance and training. He also Page 8 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry encouraged the promotion of newly produced items for sale and (p.139) proposed the establishment of a manufactory for better organization of these sales. Madhavarao also discussed the need to source good-quality clay. Finally, he appointed himself as the supervisor of the school.17 This memo reflects Madhavarao and the state administration’s keen interest towards the reconfiguration of local crafts by relocating them within statesponsored programmes. The building of museum reference collections, plaster cast models, standard designs for reproduction, and the development of markets indicate how Madhavarao was guided by the precepts of European art school pedagogy, and lately, the DSA–BoT template for training in applied arts and design. Henry Cole, who had supported the parliamentary enquiry on the declining standards of British goods, purchased the East India Company’s collection (formed in 1801) for the Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House (1852) that formed the nucleus of the South Kensington and Victoria and Albert museums (Mitter 1977: 252; Tarapor 1980: 59). Thus this idea of a collection to instruct designers/craftsmen/students, also seen in the Jaipur Museum,18 ironically guided Madhavarao’s programmes and later the provincial museums plan in India. This is ‘ironic’ since preservationists such as John Lockwood Kipling of the Mayo School fiercely believed that the traditional craftsman was in no need of instruction or reference! (Tarapor 1980: 62, 64, 66, 76–7). Madhavarao’s programmes may be viewed as the first phase in what would become a continuum of modern experiments for the crafts in Baroda. As a supporter of reforms through British-style institutions, the dewan’s referencing of colonial and European institutions is natural. Undoubtedly, this colonial modernity was localized in a tailor-made micro-project for pottery; the project was adjusted to suit the caste-based occupations in Baroda. It is interesting to see how the caste hierarchy would be diffused later by Sayajirao to formulate an alternative space through the polytechnic Kalabhavan and its associated workshops. The European practice of referencing standard sets was reinforced through Madhavarao’s second seminal effort towards the improvement of pottery. He purchased articles, namely flower pots of various sizes and patterns and goblet jars (a mix of glazed, enamelled, and unglazed wares) from the Perozeshaw Pottery Works in Bombay, which would serve as models.19 (p.140) This move anticipated the strong trend that would connect artisans and commercial workshops to create design experiments with a view to securing new markets. The third endeavour by Baroda State to introduce new production techniques in local pottery was reflected in their interest to place two to three traditional potters from Patan at the School of Industry in Bombay to learn glazing.20 An application was made by the office of the subha (in-charge of a division) to Page 9 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry secure scholarship for two Patan-based potters, Hira Kishore and Moolchand Bhookan, which was followed through by the state officials with the agent to the governor general, but resulted in Kishore and Bhookan not getting placement at the Bombay School.21 Finally, after a lapse of four years, John Griffiths recommended Ramchandra Janaradhan Budhwarkar, a scholar sponsored by Baroda State, who was already at the Bombay School.22 The Baroda administration methodically followed up on their previous requests to place Patan potters and reminded the Bombay School to impart lessons in glazing techniques to Budhwarkar. This illustrates how the state’s craft-upgradation plans were finely calibrated through individual candidate placements. Unfortunately, Budhwarkar, too, could not avail of pottery lessons since glazing techniques were not taught at the Bombay School.23 Budhwarkar continued his training as a fine artist and was appointed to teach drawing and design at the Kalabhavan in 1890.24 These early examples bear testimony to the princely state’s willingness to avail of colonial systems of art-school training for craftsmen. In stark contrast, in a continuum where policies and experiments changed, Manu Bhagavan (2002) discerns the maharaja’s strong disorientation from schools in directly ruled British India in later years. This unwillingness to engage with British-run schools is mirrored in archival data discussed later in this chapter. A decade after Madhavarao’s foundational efforts towards the development of pottery in 1877 and the failure to procure glazing techniques, the same year one Anirudha Jeevatram of Nadol, Dehegam, was sent to Jeypore to study stone pottery produced at Jeypore and Delhi.25 This stone pottery is the famous Jaipur blue, which was glazed at that time. He returned to experiment with local Visnagar clay.26 Dewan Raghunath Kelkar proposed Anirudha’s employment under Baroda State as a pottery teacher.27 This reminds us of the example cited in Chapter 1 regarding (p.141) the furniture factory that also appointed former state scholars who had availed of scholarships in technical education (Shah 1942: 109). Examples such as that of Jeevatram anticipate a more robust mobility for the artisan and his relocation at art/industrial schools. Bhai Ram Singh from the traditional caste of woodworkers trained at the Mayo School of Lahore and later became its first native principal (Vandal and Vandal 2006: 123– 5, 236). What Bhai Ram Singh achieved through formal training in an art school, Jeevatram earned with the help of Baroda’s network of scholarships and trainee placements, which then fructified in jobs at institutions. Thus the placement of Baroda’s craftsmen at external schools differed from British India’s placements of artisans at the Lahore and Madras schools; Baroda’s artisans returned to work on state projects and carried out locally viable experiments. External schools and their chosen programmes were utilized for Baroda-centric microprojects, whereas for several other Indian craftsmen art schools remained generic models for craft-training that found little relevance in actual practice in their own guilds, regions, or the marketplace. Hence, in Baroda, training, Page 10 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry apprenticeship, and job appointments were planned from start to finish as part of an integrated policy for traditional crafts, education, and industry/jobs. Examples of Kishore, Bhookan, and Jeevatram prove that the Baroda administration regarded craftsmen as ready for participation in a new order of modernization that consisted of institutions such as art schools and new systems of training. Their careers mark the beginning of what would become a smooth transition to capitalism in the realm of craft production. This may be read against the view held by the thesis of uneven development that saw the peasant as not being formally educated and hence not ready for participation in the political life of India (both in the pre- and post-Independence periods) (Chakrabarty 2000: 9, 11–13). Moreover, he was seen as bringing with him relics of dated belief systems and practices (Chakrabarty 2000: 12–13). Contrarily, one will see how the craftsman’s readiness was played up in institutions of formal training and how his skills were strategically positioned into capitalist systems of production. Together these points prove how modernity, as represented in Baroda’s art and craft paradigm, was not a counter-response to modernization and instead originated within societal modernization and its institutions. (p. 142) In terms of ideology, Madhavarao accepted what is the colonial–modern and post-Enlightenment standard of ‘scientific processes of production’ to enrich and raise the profile of local crafts (Chatterjee 1986: 30, 38, 50–1; Prakash 1999: 3, 6–8, 20, 190–1)28 through Euro-American art-school models and their techniques. As per Partha Chatterjee’s (1986: 38) study of nationalism, these models and processes may be termed as the ‘justificatory structure’ utilized to formulate national projects. Much like Chatterjee’s approach, it becomes the task of the following sections to see how this justificatory structure of art- or industrial-school pedagogy and its scientific processes guided Madhavarao and later Sayajirao’s claims and plan to improve the native crafts. For this exercise, it is crucial to illuminate how this justificatory structure did not remain static and instead evolved with time; one-off programmes initiated by Madhavarao were increasingly formalized and localized by Sayajirao. 3.3 Scientific and Technical Education to Modernize Native Crafts

In the continuum of modernization of Baroda’s crafts, the second phase was marked by a strong presence of technical education. A thumping reception of ‘technical education’ preceded its institutionalization in the form of the polytechnic Kalabhavan in 1890. The subject was understood as a category of aesthetic and scientific disciplines that converged due to a systematic sharing of rational and scientific processes of production. Abigail McGowan’s explanation of the reception of drawing in the colony facilitates this discussion: ‘In art terms, western design professionals increasingly saw aesthetics as a science, the mastery of whose laws ensured both beauty and economic success. To bring that science to the benighted colonies, art schools took on the job of opening up traditional practice to principles, rules and order’ (2009: 112). This scientificity Page 11 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry was perceived in drawing and geometry lessons or abstract design lessons that became the basis of all foundational training associated with the indigenous arts and crafts at art schools (Dutta 2006: 22, 139–40, 144–8; McGowan 2009: 112).29 Drawing was also seen as an instrument that would help to articulate aspects of joinery and finish and translate it into the making of the final product. This new pedagogy of industrial design was perceived as heralding a new system of production characterized by order, rationality, (p.143) scientific instruments, and precision. Moreover, to the Western world view of the colonial establishment, these virtues were a sophisticated counterpoint to the oral modes of transmission that characterized the traditional studio/karkhana/guild systems (Tarar 2011: 205). Thus the expression of product and design on paper was essentially seen as articulating modernity and was encouraged by British-run art schools as well as native institutes of technical education. The next case study sees a strong presence of technical education in Sayajirao’s education policy from the late 1880s. 3.3.1 Case Study I: Baroda-based Applicants for ‘Technical Education’

The Baroda administration’s call in 1888 to send a delegation of six trainees to Europe ‘for instruction in various branches of technical industry’ received numerous applications as evidenced in the dedicated archival correspondence ‘Applications for Patronage’.30 This file also evidences the heterogeneity of applicants and their diverse backgrounds and vocations, which in turn reflect the different perceptions of ‘technical education/industry’. Applicants ranged from drawing masters appointed in schools to art school students, artisans, and students of engineering, chemistry, botany, and zoology, and practising engineers in the private sector. The applicants’ interpretation of ‘technical industry’ is as diverse as their backgrounds; some requested training in drawing, artisanal skills, science-based mechanical arts, and technical subjects.31 This reinforces the increased comprehension of aesthetics as a science, and especially of ‘drawing’ as a scientific tool to render aesthetic concepts (McGowan 2009: 112). Native craft practitioners saw the possibility of placing their artisanal skill sets in a more scientific technique of production. At the opposite end of the spectrum, students from the hard sciences now regarded drawing as an important skill and tool. Excerpts from two applications that underscore this convergence of aesthetic and scientific disciplines under the category of technical education are presented. a. One application from a student, Bendre Vasudev Mahadev, of Sir J.J. School of Arts, Bombay, is to upgrade artisanal skills. He lists his credentials as having passed examination in freehand drawing, (p.144) model and object drawing, and practical geometry. He also lists his skills in tailoring and carpentry. The application says: ‘I am willing to study any art that Your Excellency may wish and I am ready to enter into any conditions.’ Clearly, this candidate from the Bombay School wanted hands-on experience in industrial arts/skills, which Bombay and Calcutta Page 12 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry lacked in their thrust to become fine art schools. This case also establishes Baroda’s sought-after place in the Western Presidency. b. The second application from Vardraj Govind Naidu is to study the ‘arts’ connected with chemical industry, especially dyeing.32 3.3.2 Case Study II: Baroda-based Applicants for Technical Education

The second archival file titled ‘Application for Technical Education Scholarship Part II’ demonstrates the qualification of ‘carpenters’ alongside ‘forestry students’ for advancement in technical education in Bombay at the expense of the government.33 This position adopted by the Baroda administration views artisans practising in woodwork and candidates from the hard sciences on a level footing to avail of technical education. The above applications explain a general blurring of lines between aesthetic and scientific skill sets wherein one is seen as enhancing the other. This positive reception of technical education and its scientific basis explains its definite espousal through the later establishment of the Kalabhavan and commercial workshops such as Nazarpaga and State Furniture Works. More importantly, Baroda’s 1908 proposal to build an independent university (that was made public in 1927 to avoid British suspicion and intervention)34 prefigures in the general technical-education landscape of the state. The proposed university sought to promote subjects such as mechanical engineering against the weight of liberal education, which was the mainstay of the utilitarian model of the University of London that shaped British Indian universities. Thus Baroda referenced the American land-grant model that showed preference towards technical and agricultural education (Bhagavan 2002: 937). The predilection for technical education and science-based subjects is present throughout Sayajirao’s tenure as seen in the 1927 Report of the Baroda University Commission (RBUC) and comments by K.M. Munshi, (p.145) renowned advocate of the Bombay High Court and a member of the university commission. In a properly adjusted University education, research in mechanical engineering must receive the same attention, if not more, as research in history or literature. … I must confess that progress in this direction has been stopped by a notion among the elder generation … that schools and colleges are intended for general culture for what they call a ‘liberal Education’. … I should like to know what is this general culture, this liberal education which while it wastes precious years of the life of a student prevents him from being a mechanic, an electrical engineer, a technologist? (RBUC report quoted in Bhagavan 2002: 937) The commission also highlighted the principle of American University Extension Work, which meant that universities should be available to the working classes. Again, in citing the specific model of the University of Wisconsin, the Page 13 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry commission emphasized how the university met its modern obligations by extending technical and agricultural education and drew attention to the fact that the maharaja had laid a firm foundation in Baroda in this regard (RBUC report cited in Bhagavan 2002: 938). These reports obviously built on Baroda’s legacy of technical education and its workshops and polytechnics which, as one will read further, shared students as apprentices and interns. Indeed the report highlighted how the university was a synthesis of varied educational efforts by the maharaja (RBUC report cited in Bhagavan 2002: 938). And finally, the leaning to merge the sciences and the arts in a single university was reconfirmed as the report stated that the two faculties of science and technology and agriculture will coexist with an arts faculty (RBUC report cited in Bhagavan 2002: 938). The Baroda Commission had clearly improvised the American landgrants model to suit its own vision and simultaneously highlight the British model as not meeting the requirements of a modern life (Bhagavan 2002: 937). 3.4 A Local Model for Technical Education

Sayajirao’s speech at the Ahmedabad Industrial Exhibition of 1902, discussed in Chapter 1, clarifies his faith in the links between technical education and modernization of the crafts and industry. Presenting his (p.146) ideas on the revival and need for Indian industry (1902, 1906), Sayajirao acknowledged that the success and viability of Indian artisanal genres could not be determined solely by their aesthetic competency; these crafts also had to compete economically and qualitatively in global markets (Gaekwad’s 1902 and 1906 speeches cited in Soares 1933: 63, 128). He emphasized that handiwork and traditional crafts should not replace industry or be replaced by industry. Instead, they should be bettered with new techniques of production (Gaekwad’s 1902 and 1906 speeches cited in Soares 1933: 63, 128). At the formative stages of the Kalabhavan, it cannot be ascertained if the nationalist economist R.C. Dutt’s ideas had already influenced Sayajirao. Dutt was appointed the revenue minister and subsequently prime minister to the Baroda State from 1904 to 1907 and then in 1909 respectively. These appointments prove that Sayajirao was impressed with his ideas on national economic development at some point. Although Dutt’s landmark two-volume publication Economic History of India was published in 1902, in 1904—that is, after the founding of the Kalabhavan—his systematic critique of the colonial policy of ‘deindustrialization’ was widely read through his preceding writings. Deindustrialization constituted a curbing of growth in modern sectors of the economy while simultaneously disadvantaging traditional industries and artisans (Dutt 1950b). Dutt’s position and the agenda of the development of industry became a nationalist one. It was especially courted by elite members of the Indian National Congress, of which Sayajirao was an active member. Hence, Sayajirao proposed scientific techniques of production for the crafts and also saw the need to link artisans’ training with that of industry’s. This attitude does not mark the craftsman as premodern, for he was already considered ready to be placed in Page 14 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry new systems of formal training and mechanized spaces of production. Sayajirao saw the obvious need to promote technical education; he announced plans to open an industrial training school or polytechnic in 1886 (Mehta 1992: 157). Within the same backdrop of deindustrialization and a throttled artisanal industry, Makarand Mehta (1992: 147–50) documents the Kalabhavan as epitomizing a fairly widespread ‘transition of traditional forms of production into the factory system’ in colonial India (p.147) (Mehta 1992: 145–7). He records the presence of 30 industrial schools in the Western Presidency that were founded between 1823 and 1894, mostly due to private initiative. It was perceived that the British government was not investing enough funds and efforts in this sphere since it saw India as industrially backward and hence in no need for technical education (Mehta 1992: 150). This explains the rationale of the raj to continue governing on the basis of the ‘rule of difference’ by discouraging technical education, disallowing modern industry, and impeding the artisanal sector. Additionally, as noted earlier, schools meant to promote the native crafts ended up modelling themselves along European art schools, thereby alienating the craftsman further from viable contexts of production and circulation. This strengthened the resolve on the part of elite Indians to further the cause of technical education. Sayajirao undertook trips to factories, workshops, and manufactories in Europe (as cited in Chapter 1) and referenced these in the formation of the Kalabhavan. The Kalabhavan may be located in the ‘grid’ through which India emerged as a space assembled by modern institutions, infrastructures, knowledges, and practices (Prakash 1999: 4, 170). However, its difference from several other institutions lies in the fact that the Kalabhavan marks the acceptance of directly imported Euro-modern scientific processes and not of a colonial institution per se. For, schools imparting technical education were not a British-sponsored colonial technique and were instead private enterprises mobilized by natives. Indeed some schools providing technical education drew on DSA expertise (Dutta 2006: 72), and hence may be seen as results of links between the colony and metropole but certainly not as colonial institutions. In trying to directly source models of technical education from Europe, Sayajirao circumvented the colonial predilection for art schools and expressed an alternative solution to liberate India from that orientalist image of an industrially backward society. The maharaja’s field research was further mobilized by a scientist-entrepreneur T.K. Gajjar who came from the traditional caste of Suthars. He made a ‘proposal for a Polytechnic Academy at Surat’ that was left unrealized due to the untimely demise of its principal sponsor (Mehta 1992: 155–6). Upon his appointment as the professor of chemistry at the Baroda College of Science in 1887, Gajjar proposed the founding of a similar polytechnic in Baroda (Mehta 1992: 157). A short account of the (p.148) Kalabhavan’s history, which makes a reference to its founding mission, points to Sayajirao’s pledge to improve the native crafts:

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry The Kalabhavan (the literal meaning of the words being Temple of Art)35 is a Polytechnic Institute which is being developed from a trade-school basis. The Huẓūr Order of 25th March 1890, records its primary object ‘to help the people to improve the existing industries and introduce new ones that may be remunerative….’ This Institute is the Central Technical School of the Baroda state. There are three smaller (District) Industrial Schools and six Manual Training Classes attached to it.36 The influence of Dutt’s writings, the pro-industry Congress camp, and Sayajirao’s own ideas to salvage and promote industry in the interest of national progress constitute the underlying thrust of the Kalabhavan. These ideas are also resonant of Gajjar’s original proposal for the Surat School, which emphasized training of artisans in ‘scientific principles of industrial arts alongside practical training in workshops’ (Mehta 1992: 155). The curriculum of the Kalabhavan reflects the inclusion of artisanal, mechanical, technical, and artschool disciplines, which signifies the (p.149) coexistence of science and aesthetics examined earlier under the rubric of ‘technical education’. Gajjar undertook extensive tours of the state to understand the nature of

Figure 3.2 Kalabhavan, Album no. 22:

Views of Baroda, page 15. traditional industries, especially Collection: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum dyeing and printing (Mehta Archives. 1992: 157) that had a direct link Photograph: Manish Chauhan. with chemistry—his area of specialization. A parallel may be seen in the Jaipur Economic and Industrial Museum established in 1887; the head clerk Braj Ballabh undertook extensive tours in the region to collect exemplary craft items and identify and frame an artisanal heritage for Jaipur (Ray 2014: 198). Coming from the Suthar caste, Gajjar may have also taken note of vernacular architectural traditions that had made woodwork popular in this region. These indigenous traditions were rightly reflected in the curriculum that began with courses in drawing, bleaching, dyeing, calico printing, and carpentry (Mehta 1992: 161). The Jaipur School of Art, founded in 1866, also focused on the inclusion of industrial arts and crafts of local origin vis-à-vis its art-school counterparts in Bombay and Calcutta (Tillotson 2004). The Kalabhavan was divided into seven schools: (a) School of Art to teach drawing, modelling, and sculpture (b) School of Architecture (c) School of Mechanical Technology (d) School of Chemical Page 16 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry Technology (e) School of Pedagogy (f) School of Agriculture (g) Practical School (Mehta 1992: 162). The staff included professors, laboratory assistants, and craftsmen from caste-based guilds such as mistris who were categorized as assistant masters (Mehta 1992: 162)—but ‘masters’ still as the workshop model was espoused and practical skills were emphasized. This arrangement was in stark contrast to the Mayo School in Lahore where the workshop model was denied to its founding principal J.L. Kipling (Tarar 2011: 205). This also means that the mode of instruction at the Kalabhavan was not set on an entirely European path. It was a cross between the scientific ‘drawing’-based system and the workshop model akin to the guild system of hereditary artisans. There were constant revisions to the programmes of instruction at the Kalabhavan that included increasing numbers of traditional crafts and industry in addition to new modes of production. In 1897, weaving was included to introduce the flying shuttle to handloom work and watch-making was also introduced (Mehta 1992: 164). In the years 1905 and 1906, the chief artisanal genres taught at the school included enamel work, repousse work, lacquer work, woodcarving, and fret carving in addition to (p.150) the prevalent programmes in weaving, dyeing, and calico printing (Baroda Administration Report 1910–11: 157). The Kalabhavan forged close links with the industry; Gajjar became consulting chemist to a German firm, Messrs Farhen Fohrican Bayer and Company, Ethrfeld, as well as to the noted industrialist J.N. Tata’s mills in Nagpur and Bombay (Mehta 1992: 157). The Kalabhavan candidates were increasingly placed in mills and other industries as dyers, weavers, and mechanical engineers (Mehta 1992: 162, 165). They also acquired the technical know-how to produce consumer goods such as soaps, safety matches, glass, dyes, and woolen carpets that were previously imported from overseas (Mehta 1992: 164). The Kalabhavan points to the adoption of universal scientific processes of production and pedagogy to the caste dynamics of Baroda State, their artisanal genres, and further links with modern industry. Its case lends weight to the theoretical claim of the indigenization of science by the local elite and consequently the reinscription of the technological order by nationalists (Prakash 1999: 7, 11, 178–9). The localized nature of the Kalabhavan and its growth debunks the idea of craft-based technical education being a cover for, and cause of, colonial underdevelopment, especially as perceived by the proindustry camp and members of the Congress (Dutta 2006: 253–4). For, even if a large number of technical schools failed (Mehta 1992: 147–50), policymakers such as Sayajirao realized the need to adapt this institution to link craftsmen with industry, thereby giving immense value to localization. Also, through the Kalabhavan, one can extend the phenomenon to the larger ‘technics’ of industrial-school pedagogy. Constant pressure was exerted on this larger pedagogical structure that extended beyond the confines of the Kalabhavan, to make revisions to accommodate specific disciplines and practitioners from Page 17 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry Baroda. This is comparable to the idea of the exertion of pressures by indigenous cultures on the colonial sciences (Prakash 1999: 50–1, 64), which is examined next. 3.4.1 Case Study I: Inclusion of Kalabhavan Disciplines at Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (VJTI), 1903

The first effort towards a readjustment of technical education is seen in the Baroda State administration’s proposal to include genres or subjects unique to the Kalabhavan in recognized curricula of technical education. As will (p.151) be seen in the correspondence further, the principal of the Kalabhavan creates a need for new ‘lines’, that is, genres/subjects, to be recognized as part of mainstream technological programmes by creating special examinations for them. These are niche genres specific to Baroda or the region and there is a concerted effort to secure recognition for them in mainstream courses. The subjects taught at the Institution [Kalabhavan] are so arranged that the students by some special training will be well qualified to appear in several of the Technological Examinations held by the City and Guilds of London Institute. In order that the students desirous to appear for the said examinations, etc. it seems necessary that this Institution which has a wellequipped workshop, Physical and Chemical Laboratory, and a fair set of Dyeing and Printing machines, should be chosen as a centre for holding examinations of the City and Guilds of London Institute. Victoria Jubilee Technical Institution at Bombay, which is a recognized centre, is a fairly good one for the textile and mechanical branches, but the said Institution possesses no means for examining students for chemical technology and branches pertaining to it. I think that the selection of Kalabhavan as an examining centre side by side with Victoria Jubilee Technical Institution will supply a want, and will be an (sic) useful means to hold examinations in several of the subjects of chemical line not examined at present.37 Ironically, though the proposal to make the Kalabhavan a centre of examination is made by the principal of the Kalabhavan, it is not supported by His Highness’ government when it is near implementation in 1903. Reasons cited by the maharaja’s office include language constraints faced by students who, it is argued, speak and write in the vernacular, whereas the question papers for these exams are set in English and answers expected in English too.38 In addition, the Gakewad’s government saw the VJTI, Bombay, as part of the Western Presidency, and hence in close proximity of Baroda for candidates who wished to take examinations there.39 However, the rejection of this proposal could also be due to the Indian Universities Act of 1904, contents of which may have been informally known in 1903. The Act increased government control over Indian universities and especially brought subsidiary colleges such as Baroda Page 18 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry under keen jurisdiction of Bombay University. Thus the Act was interpreted as an infringement (p.152) of princely India by directly ruled British India (Bhagavan 2002: 920–1). Given this situation, at first Baroda sought greater representation in Bombay University and later mooted the idea of an independent science college in 1908 and eventually a university in 1919, which was made public only in 1927 (RBUC report cited in Bhagavan 2002: 925–6, 931–2). This means that Sayajirao’s decision to not affiliate with the VJTI may have been to delink itself from Bombay. Alternatively, ties with private institutes and trade schools in Europe were successfully forged by the maharaja from the late 1870s onwards, and it seems likely that he was not inclined to approve this triumvirate arrangement involving the VJTI/Bombay. Another plausible explanation that comes through Dewan R.V. Dhamnaskar’s final letter in this series of correspondence is the apologetic tone admitting that Nanavati, the head of the Chemical Technology School, had circumvented his superiors and written directly to the City and Guilds of London Institute since it was a private institute.40 Dhamnaskar also requests Colonel Meade to hence close the matter and not supply the information called for by the secretary of state for India.41 It can be speculated that Nanavati’s move was viewed as going against the protocol by the foreign department under whose purview this matter rested, and consequently even by Sayajirao’s office. It could also be that Nanavati’s ambition to forge direct ties with London must have been contained by His Highness’ office to avoid an irate British reaction. The above case points to the importance of chemical technology as an independent scientific discipline under the stewardship of its chemist-principal T.K. Gajjar. More importantly, chemical technology is also seen as integral to Baroda’s traditional industries such as dyeing, calico printing, and lacquerwork. Thus the creation of a dedicated exam in the subject would secure qualifications for local caste-based artisans and apprentices placed in factories. This discipline of chemical technology in its indigenized form was sought to be placed within the larger technics of industrial-school pedagogy. 3.4.2 Case Study II: Integration of Kalabhavan–Nazarpaga with VJTI Examinations, 1910

Secondly, the state administration made incessant efforts to accommodate students from the Kalabhavan and practitioners at the associated Nazarpaga Workshop at examinations conducted by recognized institutions. The first (p. 153) effort is seen in a proposal to secure affiliation for the Kalabhavan students and apprentices from factories and mills in the mechanical engineers’ exams held under the Boiler Inspection Act (1910) in Bombay. These exams could be taken by students of the VJTI and the College of Science, Poona. The principal of the Kalabhavan wished to place his candidates and apprentices on the same footing as those of the aforementioned two institutions.42 This example reflects the Kalabhavan’s interest to secure a mainstream educational Page 19 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry qualification for students and practitioners engaged in what were perhaps increasingly seen as ‘in-between genres or industries’ that required both ‘artisanal’ and ‘scientific’ know-how. Thus the state administration aspired to qualify the traditional guild-based craftsman as a modern candidate with institutional affiliation without compromising his niche skill sets. This once again reinforces how the elite collector viewed the craftsman as being ready for participation in new institutions and systems of training. These strategies to secure affiliations also reflect how the proposal for an independent college in Baroda was fiercely guarded as Sayajirao came under the radar of British suspicion several times for his progressive and nationalist leanings; he was increasingly perceived as a threat to maintaining the rule of difference. This meant that while Baroda’s own College of Science—and later university—waited in the wings, other colleges and institutes were approached to secure training and examinations for the princely state’s candidates. Thus the anglicized raja and the independent-minded nationalist in Sayajirao walked a tight rope to balance affiliations and deaffiliations with British India from time to time. The above application from the Kalabhavan and its associated Nazarpaga Workshop is eventually rejected. It is argued that Nazarpaga is run on commercial lines and is thus not comparable to the VJTI and the College of Science, Poona, which are primarily educational institutes and have dedicated workshops run on educational lines. A history of Nazarpaga and its organization and arrangements are forwarded to the Collector of Bombay to convince him further of this application.43 This case study does not demonstrate Sayajirao’s direct engagement, but his resource persons such as the principal of the Kalabhavan emerge as crucial facilitators. Moreover, the history of the Nazarpaga Workshop is sent by Dewan R.C. Dutt from the Huzur Cutchery, which is Sayajirao’s office. (p.154) This reinforces the argument presented in Chapter 1 regarding the maharaja’s indirect agency that is underlined in all correspondences emerging from the Huzur Cutchery. In the adaptation of industrial-school pedagogy to the particular needs of Baroda crafts, one locates a ‘split between the subject of representation (universal science) and the process (colonial and particular) by which it was signified’ (Prakash 1999: 20). This localized particularity of the manner in which courses were realigned to absorb local craft and industrial disciplines within the larger curriculum overshadows the claims of the universality of industrial-school pedagogy. In this case one sees the overshadowing of science’s ‘representation as a body of universal laws of nature’ by its functioning as ‘an ideology of improvement’ employed by a nationalist and not so much by colonial governance (Prakash 1999: 20). Hence, what is espoused as a system of universal laws or a universal science increasingly represents the particularity of a local project. As a result, science enjoys indigenous authority and ceases to function as a ‘sign of colonial power’ (Prakash 1999: 84) or even Western power. Clearly then, the technics of Euro-American industrialization were de-westernized, de-colonized, Page 20 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry and re-mapped on a new geo-ideational space that aspired to its own brand of modernity. The above discussion clarifies that nationalism was often derivative at its point of departure. It operated within the colonial technics as seen in the case of Madhavarao’s experiments or was guided by post-Enlightenment knowledge systems. However, with the passage of time, the colonial technics and postEnlightenment ideas were reinscribed to make space for the local and national. This indigenization of science and colonial modernity is also explained as nationalism’s ‘different discourse’: nationalist thought is explained as deriving from post-Enlightenment rationalism, followed up with a struggle that displaces this dominating framework and also subverts its authority. Indeed then, scholars such as Partha Chatterjee (1986: 42) who have discussed the derivative nature of nationalist discourse also agree that the Western framework of knowledge is not borrowed wholesale; it undergoes change in the project of nationalism. More than the indigenization of technical education or science, science also enjoys shifting locations. As much as it inhabits the curriculum of Western industrial schools and Western genres, it comes to (p.155) inhabit the indigenous arts and crafts and local training schools, which, in the first place, are the very objects that the colonial discourse and science seek to appropriate. What can be the result of science inhabiting these native genres? 3.5 Mechanization, Commercial Workshops, and Markets

On the strength of science, traditional crafts are placed in what Dipti Khera describes as the ‘modernizing topos of design, manufacturing, and the economic imperative’ (Khera in Dehejia 2008: 32). Khera uses this phrase in the context of silverware and its production in the Madras-based mechanized workshop of Scottish proprietary P. Orr & Sons, complete with native artisans and European supervisors; the firm advertised the convergence of mechanized processes of production with indigenous pattern in cost-effective ways (Khera in Dehejia 2008: 29, 32). The context of the commercial firm and workshop allows us to look beyond the culture and tradition-bound nature of the crafts and craftsman that was hyped in the craft vs industry debate after 1851. In addition to European firms, a handful of exemplary Indian workshops also adopted the factory-style organization, that is, a combination of hiring castebased practitioners as master designers who engaged with a team of craftsmen and mechanized means of production. The silver manufacturing firms of Oomersee Mawjee in Kutch and Baroda, the Ahmedabad Wood Carving Company (AWCC), and the Bombay Furniture Workshop are examples of this commercial workshop-style production. Similar workshop-style production was exemplified in the Nazarpaga Workshop and the State Furniture Works, which were mechanized, profit-oriented, and espoused the cause of artisanal craft and

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry design. These workshops were supported by the joint sphere of the Gaekwads’ royal consumption and the Kalabhavan. The AWCC’s profile illuminates the context of commercial workshops. Founded in 1881 by American furniture designer and entrepreneur Lockewood de Forest and the Ahmedabad-based merchant Muggunbhai Hutheesing, the AWCC pledged its support to artisanal autonomy and improvement of consumer tastes (McGowan 2009: 132–3). Lockewood gave autonomy to the head mistris to conceive designs and only set the (p.156) larger direction for the firm to respond to market needs (Mayer 2008: 13, 60, 67–9). ‘[T]he AWCC was hailed by crafts enthusiasts as a resounding success in its early years. Commercial yet based in traditional aesthetics, centralized under efficient management yet artistically individualistic, producing the highest quality and yet able to employ up to a hundred artisans at a time, the firm provided a totally different mode for preserving and revitalizing crafts’ (McGowan 2009: 138). Its works found active representation at exhibitions. The AWCC’s summary introduction is used to compare similar factory or workshop-style production units in Baroda. 3.5.1 Case Study I: Nazarpaga Workshop

The Nazarpaga Workshop is an amalgamation of the existing workshops: one that belonged to the khangi department of the royal palace and the second that belonged to the PWD, both of which are recorded to be functional from even before 1875.44 In 1892, what we know as the Nazarpaga Workshop came into being as His Highness saw the need to centralize the workshops ‘so as to have one extensive workshop fitted up with necessary machines and appliances and working it efficiently on a commercial scale, so as to execute all orders of the various State Departments’.45 In addition to these reasons, the Kalabhavan, too, wanted a workshop for the practical training of its students.46 Archival records demonstrate that the founding mission of the Nazarpaga took shape reasonably well. In their old and new forms, these workshops made new articles or carried out repair works for their home departments as well as other departments of the state that did not have workshops of their own. It also executed private orders of the royal palace. The Baroda administration reports meticulously record the value of works produced annually as well as the profits made.47 The Nazarpaga Workshop, in addition to its commercial segments, also facilitated practical training for the Kalabhavan students in the use of engines, machinery, smithy, carpentry, joinery (Baroda Administration Report 1920–21: 302–3). The state administration report records, ‘The Nazarpaga Commercial Workshops give the students of the Kalabhavan manual skill and progressive and methodical, practical, industrial training’ (p.157) (Baroda Administration Report 1920–21: 303). Apart from the Kalabhavan candidates, the workshop had regular apprentices, mechanical staff, and artisans.48 An early record of 1909 titled ‘List of Machine Tools at Work in Different Sheds of the Nazarpaga Workshop’ demonstrates extensive mechanization; the equipment listed here is Page 22 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry machine shed that includes drilling machines such as the watchmaker’s drilling machine, shaping and slotting machines for furniture production, fly press, lathe shed, brass foundry, iron foundry, smithy shop, steam engines, gas engines, and extra machines.49 ‘List of Workmen in the Nazarpaga Workshop’ also reflects caste-based artisans alongside apprentices, handymen, and students.50 It reads thus: fitters, ‘coolies’ in the permanent establishment; turners, machine men in turning and machine shop; pattern makers in pattern-making shop; smiths, ghankaries (oil pressers) in the smithy shop; foundry foremen, moulders, assistants, chippers in foundry shop; carpenters, woodcutters, apprentice boys, polishers in carpentry shop; engine drivers and foremen; masons, nowganies,51 and coolies in temporary establishment; and gatekeepers and peons. This neatly delegated workshop-style system and caste mobility is comparable to the AWCC. It is important to note that candidates did not select their specializations or positions along hereditary caste lines as was the case at the Mayo School. The latter gave preference and free education to hereditary caste artisans vis-à-vis candidates from salaried classes or non-artisan castes of Punjab. Applications were verified against census reports and district gazettes (Tarar 2011: 204) and the majority candidates were trained in the same area as their hereditary craft/ trade (Tarar 2011: 213). Nadeem Tarar locates the Mayo model in the orientalist view of Indian society that saw the colony as traditional and caste-based (Tarar in Tarar, Mahmood, and Choonara 2003: 119, 2003: 26). In keeping with the sociocultural reforms of Baroda State, its workshops unhinged caste hierarchies. As discussed earlier, the foundation for this caste mobility and diversification of artisanal skills was set in the early scholarships and placements for technical education. Hence the Kalabhavan and Nazarpaga retained only select castebased profiles such as the ghankaries (oil pressers), which may have been in the interest of the absolute specialization of the trade and the materials handled. Again, if viewed in a continuum, Madhavarao’s first state-sponsored pottery programme called upon traditional potters (p.158) and clay workers, but later projects bypassed the colonial sociology of occupational castes. 3.5.2 Case Study II: State Furniture Works

The second case study explores the State Furniture Works, also patronized by Sayajirao. A history of the workshop is learnt from the Baroda Administration Report (1912: 174). This was originally a small outfit under the bungalow department of the palace. It fulfilled furniture-related needs of the old palaces and residential quarters under maharajas Ganpatrao and Khanderao, which can help us trace back its presence to at least the 1850s. This outfit became a fullfledged factory-style workshop with ‘up-to-date machinery’ and electric power. It was inaugurated in the 1880s and focused on ‘the local manufacture of elegant furniture after the latest style’ (Baroda Administration Report 1910–1911: 174). The report also records the training of local artisans in the art of cabinet-making and ‘turning indigenous talent in new direction’(Baroda Administration Report 1910–1911: 174). Page 23 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry Like the Nazarpaga Workshop, this workshop, too, is profit-oriented. In fact the annual report of 1920–1 calculates the workshop’s profits as comparable with commercial Bombay firms and considers these as indirect profits for the state (Baroda Administration Report 1920–21: 258). The range of works produced here reflects much diversity. Some of the items listed in the 1920–1 report include furniture for the new kitchen at the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, new furniture for the Visnagar Rest House, three-fold carved screens for the Makarpura Palace, moulding for Durbar Hall at the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, new cupboard and cases for the Jaya Mahal Palace in Bombay, and so on. The workshop also undertook repair works of ‘artistic furniture’ of the various palaces (Baroda Administration Report 1920–21: 260). The production of new furniture pieces attests the employment of the traditional mistri’s skills in the burgeoning market for furniture that was actively supported by the trend of building Euro-Indian residences. Workshops such as these readied the traditional woodworker to adapt his skills to new forms through a distinct set of pedagogical tools that included drawing and even independent lessons in joinery as noted in the case of the Nazarpaga (Baroda Administration Report 1920–21: 260). (p.159) The founding of the Nazarpaga Workshop reflects the coming together of the private chambers of the palace or the household department and the PWD. Moreover, the khangi department continued to support both Nazarpaga and the State Furniture Works actively due to its large scale of consumption created by the augmentation of residential spaces. It illustrates the crucial role of private consumption within the royal palace in recruiting artisans and furthering their positions in factory-style production. Its founding mission is fulfilled as the workshops are mechanized and cater to private courtly consumption, statewide orders, and commercial clients on a profit-generating basis. Furthermore, Sayajirao’s position as private collector and lender coupled with the role of native head of state facilitates a shared space between the polytechnic, workshops, and colonial exhibitions. Much like the AWCC and Oomersee Mawjee silversmiths, the Nazarpaga Workshop and the Kalabhavan regularly produced items for exhibition loans and received awards for their display and sales items.52 One not only sees the placement of artisanal crafts in the ‘modernizing topos of design, manufacturing, and the economic imperative’ (Khera in Dehejia 2008: 32) but also the ‘exhibition’. The aforementioned gives value to Tirthankar Roy’s (1999: 1, 3, 231–2) suggestion that traditional industry modernized itself through technological and organizational changes; hence colonialism bore a creative impact on the crafts so as to improve their capability. Technical education was not a colonial technic per se as has been concluded earlier. But commercial workshops of European ownership were established as a result of colonization and its attendant aspects of trade. Within this partially colonial and part Euro-American ambit, one

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry identifies native agency as facilitating technological and organizational changes through polytechnics and workshops. 3.6 A Native Capitalist Order

In terms of the context of craft production, there was no orientation towards pure revivalism as in the case of the craft promotion project undertaken at the Jaipur School of Art (1866) and later the Jaipur Exhibition (1881) and Albert Hall Museum (1886) (Tillotson 2004: 111–26). In the case of Jaipur, alongside some technological changes (Sachdev 2012: 178, 180), (p.160) the autonomous position of the craftsmen and their contexts of production were carefully guarded in craft and architectural practice.53 In Baroda the context of craft production itself was mechanized and linked with factory-style units or heavy industry. This does not suggest that technical education and workshops opposed or displaced the social units of caste altogether, for caste-based guilds continued to practise in Baroda’s districts and found active promotion at exhibitions and markets through the Kalabhavan that operated as a central representative agency.54 Baroda’s premier polytechnic and workshops furnished alternative solutions to strictly colonial art school models or Euro-American industry. They debunk the long-held view that traditional systems and Western ideas of capital and technology could not coexist in alternative projects. K.N. Panikkar (2007: 17) explains how resistance and its attendant search for alternative modernity relied on a critical regeneration of traditional and Western ideas. However, the pressures of revivalism (as noted in Chapter 1, Gaonkar [2001: 6] interprets this as a reverence for antiquity) and colonial modernity (Gaonkar interprets this as a current scientific superiority) eventually pushed the alternative out of the public sphere. The void left by alternative modernity was filled by two conditions: the culture of the capitalist West first provided by colonial modernity and then by globalization, and often by fundamentalist revivalism (Panikkar 2007: 17). However, in Baroda’s case, alternative craft experiments were framed within the capitalist structure of mechanized production and markets and the cross-country circulation of goods. Hence capital and global were facilitators of alternative modernity rather than being conditions that filled in for it after its demise. However, these capitalist modes were worked out in a Baroda-relevant template that accommodated artisans and even fielded artisanal works. At no point was the cause of the artisan or non-mechanized sectors compromised in the interest of an industrialized Baroda’s exclusive representation. This conjures a picture of a self-devised native capitalist order that saw immense relevance in the dynamism of colonial modernity but did not rely on it completely. There may be value in trying to argue that after all the ideological and practical basis of Baroda’s alternative modernity never fell by the wayside. Instead, it sustained and grew into contemporary Baroda’s or (p.161) Gujarat’s heavily industrialized sectors, but that thesis resides outside this project. Moreover, the Page 25 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry arts and crafts found a continued place in Gujarat and India’s most representative and exported types. Thus Panikkar’s view of the pushing out of alternative modernity under the pressures of revivalism and colonial modernity does not apply to the Baroda experiment, for it insulated itself from these pressures tactfully (as seen in several projects such as Baroda’s university experiment that was kept confidential to avoid British reaction as well as any extreme revivalist interventions). Thus one could conclude that technical education’s justificatory structure effectively shaped nationalism. Capital, technology, and markets allowed the nationalist to imagine a modern category of crafts. However, technical education and its provenance of a Western geography may also have exercised limiting influences on the formulation of cultural nationalism, for—as an institution of societal modernization—it facilitated standardization, sameness, and convergence (Chatterjee 1986: 38, 41–3, 51–2; Gaonkar 2001: 16–17). Baroda’s ‘scientifically manufactured crafts’ must have sought some obvious typification to represent the ‘indigene’ and thus project their innovation, difference, and divergence (Gaonkar 2001: 16–17). So while the craftsman and his specialization were absorbed behind the scenes in workshops, the most obvious outward sign of difference was displayed through artisanal design.

Part II: Internationalizing Indian Design 3.7 Contribution to Native and European Capital

The Kalabhavan and its associated workshops emerge as modern, successful, and profitable educational and industrial enterprises. All the same, it is important to question their role in the formulation of a national art/craft. This question brings us to the elite nationalist’s dilemma, as seen in the case of Partha Chatterjee’s (1986: 51, 64–5) protagonist, Bankim Chandra: does the adoption of the intellectual premise of colonial domination—that is, postEnlightenment ‘European’ science—obliterate the mark of the national? In the case of Baroda, despite the overarching presence of the mechanized, modernized domain of craft production, the sign of the indigene was retained through ‘Indian design’. (p.162) The various art and craft commissions and projects examined thus far demonstrate Sayajirao and his team’s acceptance of the dichotomous model of scientifically superior Western practices and the aesthetically superior Indian arts and design, examined earlier through the 1851 Great Exhibition’s verdict. Nationalism’s formulation within this essentialist, objectifying framework of post-Enlightenment ‘European’ knowledge is often seen as a contradiction, for this knowledge base ‘corresponds to the very structure of power nationalist thought seeks to repudiate’ (Chatterjee 1986: 38). However, instead of reading this as a contradiction, one sees it as deft usage of the essentialist conception: the elite native collector not only accepted the scientific ‘universal’ standard to enrich and raise the profile of native crafts, but also pitched ‘indigenous design’ Page 26 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry as a ‘new standard’ through the same essentialist framework to lend value to Indian craft. In the process, he showcased Indian design’s global, adaptive leverage as well as its native particularity. As highlighted in the Introduction and Part 1 of this chapter, Indian design had gained increasing visibility through the global interest in Indian decorative and industrial arts. The native collector, too, contributed to this global wave for Indian design. Drawing and the proliferation of pattern books and the inherent nature of Indian design (which is non-illusionistic and flat) made it easily reproducible and transferable to a diverse range of goods (Dutta 2006: 129, 223). This serves as a reminder of its courting by DSA–BoT or simply, British industry. Also, its non-referential nature attributed to Indian design a wideranging or often interchangeable provenance in commercial circuits (Dutta 2006: 116, 148, 223; Mathur 2007: 10; Sharma in Dehejia 2008: 52–3). Despite a diminishing affiliation with its place of production, colonial India and its many national projects claimed ownership for this design. To explain this paradox, on the one hand Indian design did not enjoy a definite provenance, especially in the commercial circuit; however, the colonial investigative modalities of surveillance and documentation lent increasing recognizability to typical regional patterns. Hence, in commercial quarters Indian design was subsumed in the larger whole of oriental design or generic Indian design. However, in the context of catalogues and exhibitions it was being documented and displayed with its accurate place of origin or production. Against these two contradictory flows, the native collector became a lender of Indian design to machine-made goods, and in (p.163) his role as head of state and lender to exhibitions, he loaned typical or vernacular Baroda design. The former practice relocated the larger portfolio of Indian artisanal design, albeit in a more generic fashion, to the high-end segment of luxury goods; the latter practice represented typical vernacular portfolios of artisanal design at colonial exhibitions. Both practices, in the end, signified the cause of the crafts and the artisan. The first practice of the promotion of generic Indian design may be located in Amin Jaffer’s (2006) unravelling of design discussions between princes and producers of luxury items—primarily European design stores and fashion houses such as Baccarat, Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels, Boucheron, and Osler & Co. These design discussions are brought to the fore with the usage of line drawings, letters, and photographs sourced from royal and corporate archives. They shed light on the transfer of Indian design to the manufacture of Westernstyle luxury goods such as jewellery, toiletries, decorative objects, and architectural pieces (Jaffer 2006). Following Jaffer’s trajectory, one employs archival data to show Sayajirao and his resource persons’ keen involvement with three commissions directed towards European luxury goods firms.

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry 3.7.1 Case Study I: Commission of Walking Stick for Messrs P. Orr & Sons, Madras, 1880

Madhavarao wrote to P. Orr & Sons in 1880, commissioning the firm to make a jewelled stick for His Highness55 and enclosed an extract from a detailed ‘design’ note prepared by architect Major Charles Mant; a ‘design discussion’ preceded the production of this customized collector’s item: [B]eing colored as it will appear when made, it is not necessary to give a very detailed description of it. The upper part of the shaft is intended to be of ivory, carved to represent two intertwining snakes whose heads are opposite to each other, one on each side the spaces between their folds being filled in with gold chased work. The parrot handle will be of chased gold on a wooden or other case as may appear best to the gold smiths. The different jewels used are clearly intimated by their respective coloring.56 It can be learnt from the acknowledgement sent by P. Orr & Sons that a drawing was enclosed with the extract.57 This suggests that the architect (p.164) Mant’s skill as a draughtsman was employed to render the design. The proposed design employs Indian patterns, represented through the intertwining snake heads and parrot common to Indian ornaments. Moreover, the reconfiguration of Indic materials such as ivory, woodwork, and gemstone inlay work is noteworthy and resonant of Neelakandan Asari’s experiments. A piece encompassing such an expensive and eclectic range of materials could be afforded only by the domain of royal consumption. As a result of such commissions, the royal palace became an important lender of Indian patterns to European firms. In the global circuit of design-inspired manufactures, the DSA–South Kensington58 consortium is positioned as a lender of indigenous design by virtue of its collections of decorative objects, pattern books, and line drawings (Dutta 2006: 224). Now the royal collector from the colony supplements the metropolitan lender. This commission also buffers the view presented in Chapter 2 with regard to a wide inter-ocular field provided by the Lakshmi Vilas Palace to the artist Ravi Varma. For, just as the artist drew on oil paintings and copies displayed in the palace, these new luxury goods’ designs must have drawn on the rich collection of jewels and personal and ceremonial items already within the palace collection. The idea of the ‘migration of images in an inter-visual field’ (Pinney 1997) afforded by the palace and its collection explains royal agency in the augmentation of the portfolio of generic Indian design in machine-produced goods globally. One acknowledges that a single item cannot position the royal collector and his palace as a lender of Indian design. However, royal consumption made it feasible to commission luxury goods frequently (Jaffer in Jackson and Jaffer 2009: 207, 212) and thus offered scope for design discussions. This is evidenced in the large numbers of Baroda commissions that

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry ranged from jewellery pieces to dinner sets, thrones, and so on as recorded in the correspondence with P. Orr & Sons among several other firms.59 3.7.2 Case Study II: Commission of Howdah for Messrs Deschamp & Co., Bombay, 1887

The second example demonstrates the royal collector as a lender of Indian ‘form’, in addition to design, to the segment of machine-produced goods. Madhavarao makes a purchase order for a carriage for seven persons from (p. 165) Messrs Deschamp & Co., Bombay. This carriage is chosen from the company’s catalogue and, as per the correspondence, the catalogue illustration was originally filed with the order.60 One sees how these modes of transport consisting of carriages, howdahs, and so on formed a special segment of goods that catered to select clientele from the colony, mostly Indian princes and nobility. Baroda’s exceptional collection of carriages and howdahs inherited by Sayajirao and its frequent display for ceremonial pageants is recalled from Chapter 1.61 Had it not been for India’s maharajas, luxury goods’ firms may not have enjoyed the scope to produce these indigenous items that were traditionally handcrafted. In the absence of archival data, it cannot be verified if the larger utilitarian pieces were displayed at exhibitions like their miniature replicas. However, visual domains, such as the sales catalogue in this case, lent them visibility. For European firms, these catalogues and brochures served as advertisements of their royal clients and as references for future design discussions. Royal commissions thus contributed to the portfolio of ‘European machineproduced goods’ by lending Indian artisanal forms for manufacture. These forms were absorbed in the production of miniature items, once again targeted at a royal clientele. For instance, Tantalus, a set of glass and gilt bronze decanters, was produced in the form of an elephant with a howdah by the luxury firm of Baccarat in 1877 (Jaffer 2006: 162). It was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, 1878, and purchased by Sayajirao (Jaffer 2006: 162). The name of the artefact is inspired by Tantalus, a figure in the Greek pantheon who stole ambrosia and nectar from King Zeus’s table. The elephant is known to be inspired by a fountain commissioned by Napoleon in 1808 and created by JeanAntoine Alavoine. Indeed the howdah must have been drawn from the new oriental objects that constituted maharajas’ commissions (Jaffer 2006: 162). These luxury miniature goods may also have drawn from their locally produced artisanal counterparts such as special commissions of miniature elephants with howdahs in ivory and silver that can be seen at the Baroda Museum today.62 The silver model of an elephant with a gilt howdah shows the king as part of a Dussehra procession. Chapter 4 will establish how these pieces were frequently loaned for exhibitions. Thus the European firms’ referencing of vernacular forms such as the howdah is a graphic example of the contributions of the native collector, capital, and the craftsman to (p.166) European capital and manufacture. Together Madhavarao’s howdah commission to Messrs Deschamps Page 29 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry & Co. and the two miniature pieces—one produced locally by an artisan and the other by Baccarat—prove the simultaneity and cross-referencing of experimental pieces produced across plural locations. This discussion undercuts capital’s perceived unitary character and European location, for, as Dipesh Chakrabarty explains, the history of a dominant European capital carried within itself the differences of other minor traditions (of capital). Hence, a seemingly homogenous capitalist order was constantly reinscribed with varied objects and practitioners from multiple centres of the world.63 3.7.3 Case Study III: Commission of Tea Service for Messrs P. Orr & Sons, Madras, 1875

The third commission was not confined to the domain of private consumption, though it was very much facilitated by its sociopolitical network and economic scale. This was the landmark Swami Tea Service manufactured by P. Orr & Sons, gifted by Sayajirao to the Prince of Wales during his visit of 1875–6. Given its status as a royal diplomatic gift, the Swami Tea Service was subsequently displayed at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878. It consisted of 12 teacups, saucers, teaspoons, a teapot, a sugar bowl with tongs, a milk jug, and three salvers (Dehejia 2008: 13). Swamis or gods of the Hindu pantheon were part of its ornamentation. The Swami pattern was borrowed by the native silversmiths from multiple visual sources to create their own contemporary portfolio of design (Khera 2008: 23–6). This re-testifies the idea of the rich inter-visuality enjoyed by the colonial artists, especially in the realm of God pictures (Pinney 2004: 34–44). The tea service’s patronage was more likely by Madhavarao, since Sayajirao was still a minor prince then. The trio’s—Sayajirao–Madhavarao–Ravi Varma—predilection for mythological/God themes in the formulation of the high arts is evidenced earlier and its extension to the site of artisanal wares is easy to comprehend.64 Incidentally, this genre of Swami silverware referenced Varma’s mythological lithographs post 1900 to augment its portfolio (Khera 2008: 34). Since Hindu icons were traditionally viewed in the iconographic narrative, this design portfolio enjoyed mixed reception.65 Often it was critiqued (p.167) as being debased in its application to European form by preservationist craft crusaders such as George Birdwood (Khera 2008: 22, 29). In the same vein, William Morris critiqued these gifts presented to the Prince of Wales. ‘It was pitiful to notice how the conquered people had copied “the blank vulgarity of their lords”’ (Morris quoted in Mitter 1977: 251). In stark contrast, the revivalist crusader Thomas Holbein Hendley, who spearheaded the Jaipur projects and especially the 1883 exhibition that underlined the authenticity of Indian crafts, applauded the craftsmanship of this new iconographic decoration (Khera 2008: 31). As is incisively pointed out elsewhere, ‘Nevertheless, the exchanged gifts were employed in setting standards for the “best” in handicrafts and industrial art in British-Indian Empire, thereby acquiring a symbolic value beyond their

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry ceremonial significance’ (Khera 2008: 22). The Swami Tea Service leads us to our next discussion on the hybrid. 3.8 The Myth of Stylistic Purity and the Invention of the Hybrid

Audience responses, exhibition reviews, and art-historical discourse have always problematized the reception of hybrid experiments. Hybrid works, especially from the colony/Orient/Asia, were and continue to remain problematic. Even in the postcolonial context, the revisionist exhibition Magiciens de la terre shown at Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1989 excluded Indian works that assimilated foreign or outside inputs. Even though the objective of the exhibition was to show 50 Western and an equal number of non-Western artists to celebrate global pluralism with no hierarchies, this historical exhibition was uncomfortable with the hybrid (McEvilley in Poshyananda 1996: 57).66 The mixed reception of hybrid goods problematizes the rise of multiple, alternative modernities. Considering that Indian design and craftsmanship was superior, for reformers such as Morris and Kipling the reference process had to be one-way. British manufacturers would reference Indian design, but it was perceived that the Indian craftsmen were in no need to marry their designs to British forms. This assumption and the consequent criticism does not acknowledge that as much as the British manufacturers sought alternatives to their products and design failures, Indian craftsmen in their new contexts teeming with European firms, semi-mechanized (p.168) workshops, and design books also sought alternative applications of their design portfolios. Additionally, patrons of Indian design such as Sayajirao and Madhavarao, too, sought alternative collectibles. Hence the search for the alternative was underway in the metropole and colony, gesturing towards its multiple contexts that often shared their objects of reference. While some contexts were directly controlled by the political and commercial web of imperial interests, several others were a natural progression of cultural processes such as the development of new tastes. Geeta Kapur’s dichotomous frame for hybridity is applicable here: in the process of globalization, hybridity can be a cultural or a market-driven process (Kapur 2000: 349). The native collector was aware of the growing British taste for Indian design in the metropole. Therefore, collectors at the Lakshmi Vilas and firms such as P. Orr & Sons channelled new hybrid tea services and similar objects that displayed Western form and Indian design in the international circulation of objects. This realm may be seen as driven by the market, that is, primarily driven by Indian and Western firms and their clients. Additionally, collectors such as Madhavarao and Sayajirao, who were proxy designers (as in the case of the walking stick), endorsed the new hybrid to which they were exposed through their own private sphere of consumption and frequent travels to Europe. Their hybrid lifestyles had acquainted them with European form and social customs, for example, usage of tea services in British society. Therefore, the collector’s Page 31 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry agency and his own sensibility for the hybrid, earned through the cultural process, are crucial to placing this market-led hybrid into the domain of international gift exchange. The underlying motives behind the realm of hybrid goods and objects were equally hybrid; the market and cultural processes were both tastemakers for hybridity. Also, most often these two realms overlapped to create a shared space of hybrid products between the metropole and colony. The common bind was ‘Indian design’: whether it was employed to improve industrially produced British goods, or to create an export market for Indian artisanal design, or to simply promote Indian crafts through design, the outcome was equally hybrid. On the one hand, the space of the exhibition was serving the enterprise of colonial trade and international diplomacy, and on the other it was sharply etching a nationalist imaginary. (p.169) Despite the fact that the Swami portfolio was a contemporary design experiment in silverware, the artisan’s agency in its creation and his placement in the mechanized economic locus made it valuable to the native collector’s national narrative. This narrative expressed itself through such landmark commissions geared for international display. Design bore an ‘Indic imprint’ and gave representation to Indian crafts and artisans. Its increasing adaptation to machine-produced forms as a marker of British and Indian taste pitched it as an ‘international aesthetic standard’. Despite the ubiquity of Indian design, a fair number of typical Baroda crafts did not find inclusion at polytechnics, workshops, and commercial firms since they remained in their traditional realms of production. It becomes important to ask how these genres found a place in the evolving Baroda category? This question is answered next through the famous Baroda Screen, Baroda Balcony, and Pigeon House produced by Patan potters and one Keshav Mistry. These craftsmen, like the Swami silversmith, were guided by scientific processes, European supervision, Indian design, and their own skill sets: components that were integral to steer Baroda State’s craftmodernization project and to simultaneously help it to stand out as different and recognizable. 3.8.1 Facades of Authenticity: Screens and Gateways

The concept of ‘art rooms’ (borrowed from period rooms created in departmental stores) became a popular device at colonial exhibitions to articulate vernacular arts in the space of a room that was designated as a court or pavilion. Undoubtedly, the interior spaces of these rooms were filled with varied specimens. However, the facade and partitions used to create these rooms gave fullest expression to a distilled version of what could be considered ‘typical or representative’ ornament/design of a particular region. These facades, as stand-alone pieces, were non-Indic devices that served the function of exhibition layout and arrangement. They also functioned as backdrops for other smaller exhibits and artisans at work. One sees the merging of Indian design with a non-Indic decor feature in an ironic bid to display ‘authentic’ regional samples. This was especially the case with the 1902–3 Delhi Durbar Page 32 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry Exhibition that emphasized the preservationist approach in areas of production and design (Watt 1904: 20). (p.170) Yet ironically, the exhibition resorted to hybrid examples such as screens and facades to give visual expression to ideas of authenticity and regional types. Once again, hybridity in this case may be attributed to both market-driven targets or culturally sensitive agendas. The exhibits provided the resource of Indian design to serve British manufacturers and simultaneously arbitrated audience tastes (in favour of Indian design and British-manufactured hybrids). All the same, committed revivalists and preservationists augmented craft output at exhibitions to promote artisanal communities. Despite the focus on preservation and pure design, this output was often hybrid since the native craftsman was either operating in an art-school context or required to adapt Indian design to European form. Homi Bhabha (1994: 2) discusses the misnomer of ‘purity’ often granted to cultures. According to him, notions of purity are a complete fallacy in any context given the situation of collaboration or conflict, both of which give rise to interaction, negotiation, reinscription, and consequent hybridity. He questions the ideas of originary identities and received traditions, and these may be extended to our purposes of a pure, received art-historical school or style (Bhabha 1994: 2). The production of these screens and hybrid objects was typically a collaborative project among art-school instructors, students, and traditional artisans or master craftsmen. Often these collaborations extended to the PWD to engage engineers who became interpreters between the native producers and exhibition committees to explain requirements of the exhibition space and its layout.67 These collaborations reflect the shared space of art schools–art exhibitions and traditional industries–commercial workshops. As much as the context of production of these screens was far from traditional and even though the overall form was hybrid, it became representative of vernacular artisanal design portfolios. This was its key difference when compared to the segment of commercial luxury goods that were at best representative of generic experiments in Indian design, as seen in the case of the walking stick. Whether particular or generic, both examples illustrate a construction or invention of what could constitute a representative craft and design piece.68 One will see how vernacular designs on the exhibitions’ trail typified an entire provenance and aided the identification of those crafts that were not included in the curriculum and practice of polytechnics and workshops. (p.171) 3.8.1A Case Study I: Baroda Screen

The 1886 exhibition displayed the famous Baroda Screen that was a product of collaboration between carvers from Gujarat and Wimbridge of the East India Art Manufacturing Company (Gupte 1886: 82, 128).69 Design details were drawn from houses in nearby Surat and Wimbridge is credited with preparing ‘working details’ (Gupte 1886: 82). Archival records and Gupte’s text also mention the participation of John Griffiths, the superintendent of the Bombay School of Art, Page 33 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry as supervisor and overall design-in-charge.70 This collaboration throws light on the preference for an art-school context to supervise craftsmen and, in the absence of the Kalabhavan back then, the Bombay School was selected to produce the work. It also highlights the crucial role of engineers to translate craftsmen and art instructors’ designs into large structures made to scale as per the exhibition space’s requirements. The royal commission found one of the panels of this screen so very characteristic in design and complete in workmanship that they took copies in plaster for reproduction and decoration of the Indian Bazar and the Private Exhibitors’ Court (Gupte 1886: 80, 128). This commission demonstrates the display of typical vernacular design from Baroda in a European form. Its repeated display through copies made for the Indian bazaar also reinforces its provenance. A post-exhibition report dedicates a paragraph to the discussion of carved screens. ‘Each of these Provincial ArtWare Courts was enclosed by a carved screen of wood, marble or other material which in most cases illustrated the style of decorative work employed in the province from which it came.’71 Hence, the designs of screens were received as authentic of their place of production.

Figure 3.3 Colour plate for the Baroda Screen by Gujarat carvers, Wimbridge (East India Art Manufacturing Company), J.J. Griffiths (Bombay School of Art), and Playford Reynolds (chief engineer of Baroda State), c. 1886, published in B.A. Gupte (1886), ‘The Baroda Court’, The Page 34 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry 3.8.1B Case Study II: Baroda Balcony

Journal of Indian Art and Industry, I, Plate 2/Image 2 after p. 132.

Courtesy of NCAA, Lahore. A second practice in the creation of facades was the making of replicas of balconies, doorways, gateways, and other features that were representative of ancient and medieval regional schools of architecture (Swallow in Barringer and Flynn 1998).72 A famous example is the reproduction of the Gwalior Gateway for the 1886 exhibition. Major J.B. Keith, the curator of the monuments of central India, persuaded Maharaja Jayajirao Scindia of Gwalior to sponsor the 70-ton Gwalior Gateway so (p.172) as to employ 2,000 ‘starving artisans’ and simultaneously promote stone carving for export industry (Spear 2008: 913). The Gwalior Gateway reflects the heterogeneity of motives that converged in the promotion of (p.173) crafts at colonial exhibitions and the heterogeneity of situations faced by artisans: while some relocated successfully to spaces such as the AWCC, Oomersee Mawjee, and the Nazarpaga, a record number were jobless in central India.73 The 1902–3 Delhi Durbar Exhibition saw the reproduction of a balcony from an old house in the main street of Baroda City. ‘Over the door into one of the offices of the Exhibition, and thus against the south wall of the Main Gallery, has been thrown a Baroda Balcony’ (Watt 1904: 9). George Watt (1904: 126), along with the state chief engineer G.R. Lynn, selected the original balcony. Under Lynn’s supervision a replica was constructed by ‘the carpenter who constructed the pigeon-house shown at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of London’, that is, Keshav Mistry. The festooning scroll work is said to be pan-Gujarati and Kathiawari (Watt 1904: 126). Since the festooning scroll work is representative of the region, it qualifies the balcony as a typical example to serve as the facade for the main gallery. One also sees that while the original example is indigenous and a prominent feature of vernacular architecture, its subjection to plaster of Paris and European supervision hybridizes the context of production. This piece was awarded the third prize with bronze medal (Watt 1904: 139). 3.8.1C Case Study III: Pigeon House

Moving away from screens and facades, one comes to ethnological exhibits that were commonplace at exhibitions to illustrate daily life in the colony. Pigeon houses were commonly found in western India as a place for feeding, breeding, and resting birds. Artistically carved out of wood, they referenced vernacular architectural traditions. The 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition saw the engagement of Keshav Mistry to make one such pigeon house in wood against an advance payment of rupees 1500; it is also recorded that Mistry exceeded the estimated amount while crafting this piece.74 However, considering the ‘fame’ his work achieved, the durbar paid him the balance, an excess amount of rupees 1,000 and another rupees 1,000 as a reward.75 Prior to the exhibition, Captain Page 35 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry Hayes Sadler, the president of the exhibition committee, is said to have reported, ‘It is a fine piece of carved work standing 18 feet high and will, I trust, form one of the most striking trophies erected in the central hall of the Exhibition’.76 The report (p.174) is unclear but it is likely that this piece was made under the supervision of the chief engineer of Baroda State, Playford Reynolds.77 3.8.2 Hybrid Star Pieces at Exhibitions

Through their popularity at exhibitions, their documentation in significant catalogues, and their repeated displays, the Baroda Screen and the Baroda Balcony became identifiable as belonging to a Baroda category (of design). Along with the Pigeon House, the screen and the balcony were documented in B.A. Gupte’s (1886: 84–6, 126–33) detailed profile of the Baroda court in the Journal of Indian Art and Industry. The balcony found a place in the series of carved screens of the Bombay Court; the Baroda Screen and the Pigeon House were presented in the journal as the second and third illustrations after the Gaekwad’s portrait, and indeed the first two to open the series of Baroda’s artefacts. These objects became the ‘frontispiece’ to the Baroda crafts in the exhibition space as well as emblematic pieces in popular perception. The Pigeon House was requested as a loan item by the Poona exhibition committee of 1888 and the Chicago Exposition of 1893.78 Subsequently, the Baroda Balcony was documented in George Watt’s (1904: 82, 128) extensive catalogue of the Delhi Durbar Exhibition. Thus, in addition to generic Indian design, an evolving category of ‘local’ Baroda design was fast becoming visible. In the context of international exhibitions, these loans were pitched as exemplary specimens of typical local design achieved through ‘European supervision’. The same loans were presented as ‘specimens of India’s progress in manufacture’ at regional and national exhibitions.79 To repeat the post-exhibition report and its discussion of carved screens: ‘[T]he exhibition was successful in attracting attention to the … possibility of utilizing under proper instruction the artistic taste and skill of native artisans in the production of articles suited to European requirements.’80 Evidently, the essentialist framework underpinned the coining of exhibition taxonomies and categories. Thus Indian design and native skill were applauded, but their direction was almost always set by the European supervisor whose instructions were more articulate when compared to the traditional modes of imparting skills.

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry There were two limiting influences of technical education/industrial-school pedagogy on the formulation of a local Baroda category. If read (p.175) (p.176) from the colonial–imperial position, the Indian artisan was premodern (like the peasant who was unable to participate in India’s political life) and continued to be regarded as the executor of the European supervisor’s work plan, as seen in the case of Keshav Mistry. Unlike the exceptional story of Bhai Ram Singh who was promoted as an able designer and architect by Kipling as well as Lahore-based engineers such as Rai Bahadur Kanhiya Lal and Rai Bahadur Ganga Ram (Vandal and Vandal 2006: 151–2, 168), Mistry operated in the shadow of his European supervisor. This left negligible room for the traditional artisan to emerge as a master craftsman in his own right. However, seen from the nationalist position, although the figure of the artisan did not gain recognition as the master producer, Indian design—and in Figure 3.4 Colour plate for the Pigeon this case typical Gujarati/ House by Keshav Mistry, c. 1886, Baroda design—earned a published in B.A. Gupte (1886), ‘The nuanced qualification. This Baroda Court’, The Journal of Indian Art design’s position as a proxy for and Industry, I, Plate 3/Image 3 after p. craft set the stage to unravel 132. and qualify a whole Courtesy of NCAA, Lahore. constellation of local crafts as a distinct Baroda category in the visual space of the exhibition. This exercise was buffered by the identification of local crafts that was also underway in the projects of colonial surveillance and documentation. The second Page 37 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry limitation of the justificatory structure was that the craft genres that were included in the Kalabhavan curriculum were either those that could fit in with the industry such as dyeing and calico printing, or those that could fit in with European traditions of cabinet-making and furniture such as carpentry and woodwork. As a result, several other typical rural crafts were excluded from this space. Another paradox in a series of paradoxes was that hybrid products born in the non-traditional spaces of the polytechnics and workshops such as the Baroda Screen and the Baroda Balcony and their affiliation with ‘typical Baroda design’ ultimately became points of departure to identify lesser-known crafts belonging to a common Baroda pool. Thus despite their exclusion from the curriculum of the polytechnic, the less-recognized crafts qualified as ‘Baroda types’ on the strength of technical education’s hybrid products. These hybrid items, in contemporary curatorial parlance, became star pieces at exhibitions and positioned the Baroda category as a recognizable one. In the case of these star pieces, hybridity was played up in exhibition catalogues to the extent of highlighting European supervision to explain the scientific process of production and its guidance to native skill. However, their display value lay in the merits of showcasing authentic (p.177) vernacular design. These hybrid pieces that were meant to serve as facades to pavilions quite literally became the ‘representative facades’ of entire sets of local crafts and their provenance. 3.9 Bridging Artisanal and Scientific Standards

Discussions in this chapter, when read against Sayajirao’s speeches produced in Chapter 1, illuminate clarity in the maharaja’s claim that the indigenous crafts, while being age-old, well-established, and superior, needed scientific techniques of production to become globally competent, and hence the justificatory structure that relied heavily on the Western system of industrial-school pedagogy was adopted. Thus there was no disjuncture between Sayajirao’s claim and justification. Given the fact that the colonial apparatuses of industrial schools, exhibitions, and catalogues were founded on the essentialist principles of polarities, binaries, and a process of ‘othering’, Dewan Madhavarao and Sayajirao conceived the cause of the crafts within the same essentialist framework. They first espoused the cause of science through a systematic relocation of crafts in experimental domains at the royal palace (as seen in the case of Neelakandan Asari), new training programmes and scholarships (as facilitated for potters and practitioners in diverse media), and mechanized systems of production (Kalabhavan, Nazarpaga, State Furniture Works), and as a result, closed the gulf between indigenously produced crafts and Euro-American machine-produced goods. Hence, if judged by the post-Enlightenment ‘universal’ standard of science, the indigenously produced crafts qualified as being scientifically produced. Baroda’s craft projects did not remain imprisoned in the ‘colonial’ structure of knowledge (Chatterjee 1986: 38, 42, 169). For, in the end, more than the acceptance of the essentialist framework that set ‘Western Page 38 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry scientific standards and supervision’ against ‘native artisanal design’, the native collector and his team’s astute negotiation with this framework to give expression to Indian craft and design is noteworthy. Following the placement of crafts in these European-style institutions, whether they be the Kalabhavan or other art and technical schools outside Baroda, one sees how the craftsman, his hereditary skills, and inclusion of select native disciplines such as chemical technology, calico printing, and vernacular woodwork indigenized the space of technical education. (p.178) Machines and scientific modes of training were adapted to several Baroda-based genres in alternative applications. Specialist officials in Baroda’s administration sought to reinscribe the structure of examinations in technical education as implemented at larger institutes such as the City and Guilds of London Institute and the VJTI, Bombay. An integrated approach towards the sponsorship of scholarships, placement, and training and the reabsorption of candidates in Baroda State’s services reasserts the craftsman’s readiness to engage with science, technology, and the new bureaucratic order. Moreover, the Baroda state administration and the artisans display preparedness to de-affiliate from age-old caste hierarchies and join the new ranks of skilled manufacturers and teachers who participate in a global economy. Likewise, caste-based artisans are privately employed at the palace to experiment with new materials and find active representation at exhibitions. Herein lay another alternative formulation that bypassed colonial views of the caste system that guided British art-school models. Thus science, technical education, and capital were redeployed in a highly viable, Barodarelevant template. Baroda State’s royalty and bureaucracy renewed their outlook towards machines and innovation. Based on this scientific temper, artisans were placed in polytechnics, workshops, colleges, and training centres worldwide. These spaces are part of the societal modernization strand when seen as spaces founded by the bureaucratic order to promote craftsmen in mainstream institutes and markets. All the same, when seen as spaces that defined the state’s representative art–craft paradigm, one which differed in global markets due to its unique production techniques and design, these spaces may be viewed as aspects of cultural modernity. Their abetment of artisanal culture and simultaneous participation in Western-style institutes show the neat resolution of societal modernization and cultural modernity in Baroda State’s policies and implementation. Having noted the many alternative applications of science and capital within Baroda’s craft and industry, this narrative also expands the native collector, the craftsman, and his design’s contributions beyond the geopolitical boundaries of the state to metropolitan tastes and experiments. The thesis of uneven development can be turned back on to Europe, especially with the post-1851 discussions that seem to be focused on rectifying Europe’s capitalist transition Page 39 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry that had clearly gone too far. Britain’s (p.179) turning to Indian crafts for the perfect synchrony between form, material, and design points to the successful status of Indian artisanal produce. Sayajirao’s collecting practice displayed a keen response to the potential of pitching Indian aesthetics and design as a ‘standard’ alongside the prevalent universal ‘scientific standard’. The native collector rode the global commercial and exhibitions’ crest to promote Indian design without which both Indian and British goods lacked aesthetic finish. As much as the 1851 critique of Indian craft highlighted its ‘lack of finish’ despite its superior design, nationalism—through the operational strategy of ‘othering’— now made a tacit reappraisal of machine-produced goods and European forms as ‘lacking aesthetic finish’ in the absence of Indian design. Examples of the Swami Tea Service, howdah, and the Baroda Screen tell us that the durbar and its officials, namely Dewan Madhavarao, together emerge as lenders of Indian design (and form) to global firms and exhibitions in addition to the DSA–South Kensington design archive. Moreover, persuasive arguments are presented in favour of the (silverware’s) commercial firms’ ultimate circumvention of the pendulum of taste, on the strength of mechanization and cost-effective production (Khera 2008: 23–9, 32). Contrary to circumvention of taste, the Baroda coterie is seen as including the cause of ‘taste for Indian design’ within this locus of manufacturing and the economic imperative to which one also adds the ‘exhibition’. With the widespread promotion of Indian design in the luxury goods’ segment and exhibition spectacles, its ‘adaptive leverage’ was showcased in the global space while also underlining its native particularity. As seen in the case of the Tantalus produced by Baccarat and the Swami Tea Service by P. Orr & Sons, several luxury goods’ firms cross-referenced Indian design and forms. Thus a seemingly homogenous capitalist order was opened up to the possibilities of alternative designs, variable products, and practitioners from multiple centres of the world. The totalizing thrust of mechanically produced uniform goods was fissured with the differences of exclusive hand-embellished designs and handcrafted forms. Thus the minor history of the Indian craft economy is neither pre-capitalist nor non-modern, feudal, or primitive. Instead, it is different and this difference is channelled such that it sits comfortably with the major history of European capital and aggrandizes its production without being subsumed by it. Much like Arjun Appadurai’s short-term trajectories that could reinscribe life stories (p.180) of entire genres, these seemingly smaller histories lend their own narratives to that of a global history of European capital. So now, the collector and craftsman’s agency rectifies the failures of Europe’s ‘overdone’ transition to capitalism that witnessed a loss of autonomy and creative skill sets of the producers (Maholay-Jaradi 2013: 46). The craftsman is not a remnant (like his peasant counterpart) but more of a requisite for both the Indian and global capitalist orders and their tastemaking domains. Thus as much as industrial capital used ‘tradition’ (Indian design and artisan) to expand at its peripheries Page 40 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry (Dutta 2006: 16), Sayajirao’s formulation of nationalism used the exhibition, mechanization, markets, and the hybrid to enhance the ubiquity and adaptability of Indian craft, design, and the artisan. Utilizing global channels of display, circulation, and sales, Baroda State made its alternative development of capital and attendant differences known and appreciated in a global system of consumption. Hence, the craftsman, Indian design, and artisanal culture were very much part of a changing economy that could at once become a part of global capitalism and continue to remain relevant to native systems of kinship, guilds, and artisanal portfolios. This chapter also undercuts the emphasis of stylistic purity and underscores the construction of tradition. The array of collaborations between European engineers and native craftsmen (that is, Baroda Screen, Baroda Balcony), European forms and Indian design (that is, Swami Tea Service, Tantalus), craftsmen and mechanized spaces (that is, Nazarpaga, State Furniture Works), and native and European capital results in hybrid contexts of production and hybrid objects. One revisits Homi Bhabha’s (1994: 1–2) idea of the interstice, the in-between space that creates strategies to formulate new ideas of self or identity through collaborations and contestations so as to articulate difference. The singular or collective ideas of selfhood and identity can be translated into nationness, community interest, or cultural value.81 As materials and techniques undergo transformation at the site of Baroda’s craft production, other genres are invented that do not wholly originate in tradition nor in the Western paradigms that they reference. Both tradition and the Western systems become reinscribed to authorize new hybrid forms. Thus artistic tenets of both domains often overlap or become displaced to create a third invented tradition or genre. Bhabha gives the example of the stairwell that connects the upper (attic) (p. 181) and lower (boiler) areas, which in turn could stand for fixed identities. However, as a connective tissue, it belongs to neither domain. It is an in-between zone that is not governed by identities on either side or their consequential hierarchies. Instead, it allows movement and interaction to produce cultural hybridity (Bhabha 1994: 3–4). Bhabha’s model is primarily cultural but it gains economic dimensions in this chapter. Baroda’s model also diverges slightly from Bhabha’s as the idea of identity is obviously not fixed. However, a new identity is reworked and sought to be projected in the interest of the nationwide artisanal community and the nation in general. Thus despite their contemporary, experimental, and hybrid character, new objects become the defining pieces of Baroda’s craft paradigm. For instance, the Baroda Screen, the Baroda Balcony, and the Pigeon House are viewed as promotional pieces by the lender and other host exhibition committees. Thus authenticity and tradition are constructed and not wholly retrieved out of some preceding, pure domain of artisanal practice. In the end, Bhabha’s ideas of the interstice and connective tissue are extended to understand private craft patronage at the royal palace and its links with institutional practices; these ideas also connect Baroda’s local craft production Page 41 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry with the global capitalist order. Collectively, they position Indian craft, design, and the artisanal community to define a national cultural identity.

Notes:

(1.) See also Asher and Metcalf (1994). (2.) Designers and critics who were dissatisfied with British mass-produced goods were Henry Cole, William Dyce, Richard Redgrave, Digby Wyatt, Owen Jones, and Gottfried Semper. In the 1830s, several debates followed and in 1835, a parliamentary committee enquired about the quality of British industrial goods and their declining aesthetic standards (Mitter 1977: 222–3). (3.) Perhaps, since Indian craftsmen organized themselves along caste-based guilds and worked in specific materials only, the compatibility between material and design was of a high order, that is, there was a critical application of design to materials. This was noted time and again in several reports and catalogues. Richard Redgrave’s A Supplementary Report on Design, which was an analysis of Indian design and how it could serve British manufacturers also underlined: ‘The recognition (in Indian design) that ornament must suit the material and function of the object for which it was intended’ (Redgrave cited in Tarapor 1980: 59; Mitter 1977: 223, 230, 248). (4.) The Baroda court subscribed to these colonial publications. The archival file ‘Correspondence with Merchants’, especially suppliers of books and stationery, reveal that Birdwood’s 1880 publication that is mentioned in the file as ‘Indian Art Manufactures’, was ordered from Thacker & Co. See GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 126, File 5: ‘Correspondence with Merchants, Etc.: Thacker & Co. 1880–1890’: The Baroda Durbar Orders 12 Copies of Indian Art Journal, i.e., The Journal of Indian Art and Industry (JIAI), from Messrs Griggs and Sons. GSA/ SCV/HPO: Section 100, Daftar 132, File 31: ‘Books: Journal of Indian Art & Industry 1884–1916’; Letter 9297; From: O.V. Bosanquet, Resident at Baroda, 8 September 1910; To: S.H. Butler, Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department. (5.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6. (6.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 45; From: Raja Sir T. Madava Row, Dewan’s Cutchery, Baroda, 5 August 1878; To: The Honorary Secretary, Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona. Page 42 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry (7.) This information has been compiled by K. Hari, the grandson of Neelakandan Asari and a self-taught ivory carver currently based in Trivandrum. (8.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 34; From: T. Madava Row, Dewan’s Cutchery, 2 August 1878; To: T. Waddington, Honorary Secretary, Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona. (9.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 45. (10.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 133; From: T. Madava Row, Dewan’s Cutchery, Baroda, 9 August 1878; To: The Honorary Secretary, Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona. (11.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letters 34, 45, and 133. (12.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letters 34, 45, and 133. (13.) ‘Swamy’ pattern (spelt as ‘Swami’ in Dehejia [2008]) was produced in southern India by native jewellers but later came to be popularized through silverware produced by the Madras-based Scottish firm P. Orr & Sons. Swami pattern essentially comprised Hindu iconographic representations and other themes from the late Company School of painting such as genre scenes or botanical representations. P. Orr & Sons produced a document that was gifted to the Prince of Wales during his visit of 1875–6 and explained the origins of Swami pattern in traditional Hindu iconography with reference to the tea service presented by Sayajirao Gaekwad to the prince on this occasion (Dehejia 2008: 13, 20, 23, 25, 34). A detailed study of this tea service is made in this chapter in Section 3.7.3. (14.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Memo with letter 45; From: Raja Sir T. Madava Row, Dewan’s Cutchery, Baroda, 5 August 1878; To: The Honorary Secretary, Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona. (15.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 133. (16.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 233, Daftar 345, File 2: ‘Industries: Correspondence Regarding the Manufacture of Pottery’. (17.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 233, Daftar 345, File 2: Memo 587 signed by Dewan T. Madava Row, Dewan’s Office, Baroda, February 1877. (18.) Artisans were allowed to borrow objects from the Jaipur Museum to make reproductions. Wax models from European companies also served the purpose of reference pieces (Ray 2014: 198, 208).

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry (19.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 233, Daftar 345, File 2: Supply List; From: D.C. Rutnagur & Co., Perozeshaw Pottery Works, Bombay, 24 April 1877; To: M.P. Taback, Esq, City Baroda. (20.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7: ‘Education Department: Miscellaneous Correspondence Regarding Education: Tuition to the Students (Potters) from Pattan in the Art of Glazing Pots’. (21.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7: Letter 164; From: Office of the Subha, Kadi Division, Camp Pattan, 21 February 1882; To: Huzur Assistant, Baroda. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7: Letter 2238; From: Kazi Shahabudin, Acting Dewan, Dewan’s Cutchery, Baroda, 9 December 1882; To: Major General J. Watson, Agent to the Governor General, Baroda. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7: Memo; From: Manibhai J. 12 February 1883. (22.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7: Letter 4173; From: Baroda, 26 January 1887. (23.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7: Letter 562; From: S. Tait, Esquire Principal, Baroda College; To: Rao Bahadur Laxmanrao Jagannath, Dewan to H.H. Maharaja of Baroda. (24.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7: Letter 61 and Memo; From: T.K. Gajjar, Principal, Kalabhavan, Baroda, 6 December 1890. (25.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7: Letter 3221; From: Raghunath Kelkar, 11 December 1887. (26.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7: Letter 3221; From: Raghunath Kelkar, 11 December 1887. (27.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7: Letter 3221; From: Raghunath Kelkar, 11 December 1887. (28.) This is the point where Gyan Prakash and Partha Chatterjee’s scholarship converge in this work. (29.) In the case of Baroda, drawing was included in the curriculum of the Kalabhavan and the Nazarpaga Workshop. Archival sources also shed light on the importance of drawing in upgrading the skills of Kalabhavan candidates and district-level schools in Baroda. See GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 19: ‘Education Department: Miscellaneous Correspondence Regarding Education’: Letter I, To: The Agent of the Governor General Baroda, 4 August 1903; Letter II; From: Chhaganlal Modi, Vidyadhikari, Baroda, 27 August 1903. (30.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 59, Daftar 101, File 8: ‘Applications for Patronage: Applications from Candidates Desirous of Going to England (1888–1896)’. Page 44 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry (31.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 59, Daftar 101, File 8: Letter from: Balagee Keshava Bhosle, Nariad, 20 March 1888; To: H.H. Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad of Baroda. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 59, Daftar 101, File 8: Letter 55157; From: Ameen Chhotalal Bhailalbhai, Petlad; To: H.E. Dewan Saheb of Baroda State. (32.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 59, Daftar 101, File 8: Letter from: Vardraj Govind Naidu, Bombay, 17 May 1888; To: Prof T.K. Gajjar. (33.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section: 59, Daftar 101, File 11: ‘Applications for Patronage: Applications for Technical Education Scholarships Part II (1889– 1896)’. Applications in this file show that two scholarships are sponsored for placement of Baroda’s candidates at the VJTI, Bombay: one for science and the other for the arts. (34.) Bhagavan (2002) shows in much detail how Sayajirao evaded British suspicion very frequently, especially since the infamous 1911 durbar incident. Given his increasingly nationalist and notorious profile in the eyes of the British, he deferred the announcement of several projects, especially those that bypassed colonial institutions. (35.) Bhavan is translated incorrectly as ‘temple’ in the primary source. It actually means a centre or institution. (36.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section: 65, Daftar 112, File 11: ‘A Short Account of the Kala Bhavan, Baroda’; Published on the Occasion of the Visit of Lord Willingdon, Governor of Bombay, 24 February 1917, Lakshmi Vilas Press, Baroda. (37.) NAI: Proceedings of the Foreign Department, September 1903: Proceeding No. 91, Kalabhavan School of Chemical Technology at Baroda; Letter from: Naranbhai Dayabhai Nanavati, B.Sc., Professor of Chemistry and Head Master of the School of Chemical Technology, Kalabhavan, Baroda, 2 April 1903; To: The Superintendent of Examinations Department, City and Guilds of London Institute, Examinations Department, London. (38.) NAI: Proceedings of the Foreign Department, September 1903: Proceeding No. 93; From: R.V. Dhamnaskar, Esq., Minister of the Baroda State, 7 August 1903; To: Lieutenant-Colonel M.J. Meade, C.T.E., Resident, Baroda. (39.) NAI: Proceedings of the Foreign Department, September 1903: Proceeding No. 93; From: R.V. Dhamnaskar, Esq., Minister of the Baroda State, 7 August 1903; To: Lieutenant-Colonel M.J. Meade, C.T.E., Resident, Baroda. (40.) NAI: Proceedings of the Foreign Department, September 1903: Proceeding No. 93; From: R.V. Dhamnaskar, Esq., Minister of the Baroda State, 7 August 1903; To: Lieutenant-Colonel M.J. Meade, C.T.E., Resident, Baroda.

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry (41.) NAI: Proceedings of the Foreign Department, September 1903: Proceeding No. 93; From: R.V. Dhamnaskar, Esq., Minister of the Baroda State, 7 August 1903; To: Lieutenant-Colonel M.J. Meade, C.T.E., Resident, Baroda. (42.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 79, Daftar 464, File 3: ‘Education Department: The Kalābhavan, Etc.’ GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: ‘Exhibitions: Chicago Exhibition (1892–1895)’: Letter 10072; From: C. Ducat, The 1st Assistant to the Resident at Baroda, 15 June 1899; To: The Minister of the Baroda State. (43.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: ‘A Short History of the Origin, General Organization and Progress of Nazarpaga Workshops’, by A.M. Masani, Vidyadhikari, 17 September 1909, attached with Memo 102; From: A.M. Masani, Vidyadhikari’s Office, Baroda, 17 September, 1909. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 480; From: Dewan Romesh Dutt, Huzur Cutchery, Baroda, 20 September 1909; To: O.V. Bosanquet, Resident of Baroda. (44.) The PWD existed as the imarat karkhana even before 1875 (Desai and Clarke 1923: 332); GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 480. (45.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 480. (46.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 480. (47.) For the year 1911, the value of the work done at the workshops is recorded at rupees 55,538. The net profit is recorded at rupees 12,090, a substantial increase from the year before that recorded a profit of rupees 8,999 (Baroda Administration Report 1910–11: 157). (48.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: p. 2. (49.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 480. (50.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111; File 5: List of Workmen in the Nazarpaga Workshops, unnumbered page. (51.) The term ‘nowganies’ most likely refers to a community/caste that helped during wars to carry ammunition or other heavy materials to places of high altitude (conversations with Manda Hingurao, secretary and curator, Maharaja Fatesingh Museum, Baroda, January–February, 2015). (52.) See Appendix II for the list of awards given to the Kalabhavan exhibition loans. (53.) Tillotson (1989: 63) explains that except for a few courses in electroplating and watchmaking, the Jaipur School of Art founded in 1866 concentrated on reviving flagging industries and protecting traditional crafts. Master craftsmen Page 46 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry were appointed as teachers. There was a conscious move to not model this school on the colonial art-school model. (54.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 9: ‘Exhibitions: Mysore Exhibitions (1907–1914)’: Letter 6011; From: Principal, Kalabhavan, Baroda, 30 July 1908; To: The Manager, Huzur English Office, Baroda; Letter 6011. (55.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 127, File 10: ‘Miscellaneous Department: Correspondence with Merchants, Etc.’: Messrs P. Orr & Sons; Letter 2195; From: Rajah Sir T. Madhava Rao, Dewan’s Cutchery, Baroda, 25 November 1880; To: Messrs P. Orr & Sons, Madras. (56.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 127, File 10: True Extract, by Dewan from a note by Major Mant, 7 October 1880. (57.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 127, File 10: Acknowledgement from P. Orr & Sons, Madras, 24 December 1880. The design could not be located in the archival records. (58.) The latter refers to the Museum of Manufactures/Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House (1852) founded in London, which later became the South Kensington Museum (1855). It comprised the company’s collection of applied art and science purchased by Henry Cole. Today this collection is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. (59.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 129, File 39; Section 99, Daftar 128, File 38: ‘Correspondence with Merchants, Etc.: P. Orr & Sons (1896–98)’. (60.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 127, File 12: ‘Correspondence with Merchants: Messrs Deschamp & Co., Bombay’: Letter 1337; From: Dewan Madava Row, Baroda, 26 April 1887. The illustration could not be located in the archival records. (61.) Marianne North (1894: 76), a natural history painter, was commissioned to document the modes of transport and carriages in the royal collection of Baroda. (62.) The ivory model is discussed in Chapter 3 (3.2.1) as the possible larger replica of a paperweight crafted by Neelakandan Asari. (63.) This reinscription of European capital may be read through Dipesh Chakrabarty’s theory of History 1 (posited by capital and compatible with capital) and History 2 (that does not belong to the life process of capital but could still have been the history of money and commodity without giving rise to capital). Chakrabarty (2000: 66) makes a revisionist contribution to what he sees as Karl Marx’s underdeveloped idea of History 2, for, according to Marx, History 2 becomes the dialectical ‘Other’ to the logic of History 1. Given this reading, History 2 becomes subsumed by History 1. Contrarily, Chakrabarty (2000: 50, Page 47 of 50

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry 64, 66) charges History 2 with the ‘function of constantly interrupting the totalizing thrusts of History 1’. (64.) H.H. commissioned Royal Worcester to produce hand-painted plates with scenes from Hindu mythology (Jaffer 2006: 142). (65.) This mixed reception is underlined by Deepali Dewan in her essay ‘The Body at Work: Colonial Art Education and the Figure of the Native Craftsman’ (Mills and Sen 2004). (66.) Also, as explained by Vishakha Desai (2007: vii), Asian art has generally seen a privileging of pre-modern Asian art forms over contemporary and experimental arts since there was a protectionist attitude towards native art forms to guard these from colonial interventions. Thus the very framing of Asian art within a larger art history lends it a timeless, pre-modern character, thereby making the reception of hybrid or experimental forms difficult. (67.) This was true of Playford Reynolds, the chief engineer of Baroda State, who superintended the overall design of the Baroda Screen and backwall (Baroda Balcony) and the realization of these carved exhibits at the final display. See GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions in London (1884–1911)’: Letter 34; From: Captain J. Hayes Sadler, President of the Exhibition Committee, 2 April 1886; To: Major. T.H. Jackson, Officiating Agent Governor General Baroda. Likewise, Chief Engineer Lynn was given charge to manage the paving of the central portion of the Baroda court with green marble for the Paris Exhibition of 1900. See GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions General Correspondence (1900–1915)’: Letter 741; From: Huzur Cutchery, Baroda, 20 April 1899; To: Lieut. Col. N. E. Martelli. (68.) According to Janaki Nair (2011: 66), the Mysore monarchy suffered much anxiety over establishing an unbroken royal ancestry and legitimacy in the early nineteenth century against the East India Company. Consequently, there was a need to project a courting of tradition in the visual arts. However, as noted by Nair, much of royal Mysore’s artistic traditions of this time were invented. Rebecca Brown (2009: 158), too, comments on the construction of Indianness in modern art and architectural projects of postcolonial India. (69.) Another famous example of a hybrid screen is seen in the one produced by the lead master craftsman Bhai Ram Singh at the Mayo School of Arts, Lahore. J.L. Kipling, the then principal of the Mayo School, supervised this project. For further discussion on contexts of production, display, and consumption, see AtaUllah’s essay in Barringer and Flynn (1998). (70.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter 34.

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry (71.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Report by Mr. J.R. Royle, C.I.E., on the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886, Indian Section, p. 2. (72.) To understand the arrangement of gateways, facades, and artisans at the Indian pavilion of the 1886 exhibition, see Cundall (1886). (73.) This example supports Tirthankar Roy’s (1999) contention to study the crafts of different regions, practitioners, and even craft genres as independent examples instead of viewing them as a singular category, for several crafts responded positively to changes in methods of production and fared well in the markets as opposed to the decline of others. Baroda and Gwalior’s artisans bring to light two differing views: John Hurd held the view that generally economic development declined in both British and princely India from 1901–31, and princely states in general lagged behind British India (Hurd cited in Ramusack 2004: 196); Baroda’s case proves otherwise. A second view propagated by C.P. Simon and B.R. Satyanarayana challenges Hurd as it views the economy of imperial India as indivisible (Simon and Satyanarayana cited in Ramusack 2004: 197). Baroda’s case gives value to Simon and Satyanarayana through the wide range of collaborations forged across Indian cities and princely states for art commissions, workshop commissions, engagement of artisans, and placement of scholars. Thus, on the one hand, as proposed by Roy, craft genres and locations need to be studied independently to understand their rise or decline while, on the other, their movement across intra-regional or intra-national borders helps one to understand how collaborations contribute to the national art-and-craft economy. (74.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter 34. (75.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Instructions on reverse of Letter 7107 of 1886; From: Major T.H. Jackson, Agent to the Governor General, Baroda, President, Baroda Committee. (76.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter 34. (77.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter 34. (78.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 502 of 1888; From: Rao Saheb Mahadeo Ballal Namjoshi, Honorary Secretary, Exhibition Committee, Poona, 9 August 1888; To: Dewan Bahadur; Lakshmanrao Jagannath, Baroda. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter from: S.J. Tellery & Co. Delhi, 11 August 1892; To: Dewan, Baroda State, Baroda. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 17; From: Sudharai Kamdar’s Office, Baroda, 1 June 1893. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 597; From: H.E. Office, 25 August 1892.

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Courting Craft, Design, and Industry (79.) As explained by Abigail McGowan (2009: 42–3), the pre-1880s displays within India mostly showcased the weakness of India’s crafts in terms of production and finish. The post-1880s exhibitions, on the other hand, were thoroughly context-driven and showed the technologies used and the artisans involved; this approach was more ethnographic and thus respectful of craft communities. The enthusiasm to show up-to-date processes is seen in several prospectuses of industrial exhibitions. (80.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Circular No. 15/5-8 Ex., Extract from the Proceedings of the Government of India, Revenue and Agricultural Department, 17 February 1888, Museums and Exhibitions, p. 4. (81.) Bhabha (1994: 2, 5) situates his case mostly in the context of minority communities and their social articulation of difference, but extends the applicability of his theory to the colonized, women, and other minority groups. Similarly, by extension this model is applied here to the group of native craftsmen in colonized India.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

Inventorying Ideas and Objects Exhibition Inventories and Loans Priya Maholay-Jaradi

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.003.0004

Abstract and Keywords This chapter demonstrates how Baroda State’s independent craft surveys inform its exhibition loans’ inventories and the eventual emergence of a Baroda provenance. Expansion of state surveys leads to increasing identification of traditional crafts, contemporary experiments, and objects of a royal pedigree. Together these genres diversify loans’ inventories and a fast-emerging Baroda court for exhibition display. The maharaja and his officials’ selection and placement of objects in exhibitions’ classification systems, negotiation with exhibition storylines and prize-sponsorship underscore human agency in the creation of value for local genres. Post-exhibition, these genres continue to affiliate with a Baroda provenance due to the documentation value of catalogues and the continuing role of local officials who represent the Baroda category afresh at new exhibitions. An eclectic display mechanism that can be read across the Baroda court at exhibitions, the royal Lakshmi Vilas Palace, and the Baroda Museum points to an active exchange of ideas and objects which may be traced back to the maharaja’s shared roles as a royal collector, a statesman, and a lender to exhibitions. Keywords:   provenance, Baroda court, Baroda Museum, provincial museums, loans’ inventories, surveys, documentation, investigative modality, period room, classification

The previous chapter laid out the role of Indian design, both generic and vernacular, in paving a path for the qualification of national and local crafts globally. The Baroda Screen, the Baroda Balcony, and the Pigeon House are Page 1 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects presented as frontispieces to the Baroda court in the visual space of exhibitions. On the strength of their typically local design, produced under European supervision, they become representative pieces for the full range of Baroda crafts. This chapter follows the story behind the Baroda Screen–Baroda Balcony– Pigeon House, that is, the story of the three sites of the polytechnic–PWD, the traditional craft guilds, and the private royal collection, all of which come together in a common Baroda paradigm. By including the latter two sites, the discussion goes beyond the scope of items such as the Baroda Screen, which was produced at the polytechnic–PWD, to examine other art and craft genres that also find inclusion in the Baroda category. Correspondence between the Huzur Office and exhibition committees is analysed to reinforce Sayajirao’s twin roles as royal collector and head of state in the following two ways: firstly, for the facilitation of local surveys to identify typical crafts for exhibitions and commercial promotion; and secondly, for the employment of these surveys in a nationwide documentation of the crafts by the central imperial command. Theoretically, this process of survey and documentation follows Bernard Cohn’s (1996: 4–5) idea of investigative modalities and their resultant reports that are employed to know and govern a territory. (p.191) The ‘loans’ inventory’ for exhibitions drawn out by Sayajirao and his office becomes the central document of analysis since it consolidates the aforementioned surveys. The gradual expansion of these inventories results in the evolution of an independent ‘Baroda court’ or pavilion at exhibitions and a recognizable ‘Baroda’ provenance. The contents of the loan inventory and Baroda court rely on an egalitarian inclusion of traditional crafts spotlighted through state surveys, crafts manufactured by the Kalabhavan–Nazarpaga, and objects from the royal collection of the Gaekwads. Tapati Guha-Thakurta’s (2004: 72) idea of the period room and its thematic approach (vis-à-vis the century mode) in museum displays is courted here to explain the easy assemblage of objects of diverse pedigrees and thus link it to Gerard Delanty’s idea of cosmopolitanism. An integration of the traditional, industrial, and royal within a single denomination is seen, thereby creating value for the entire category of Baroda arts and crafts. Taking a cue from Carol Breckenridge’s (1989: 211–12) practical apparatus of colonial exhibitions, the site of exhibitions– catalogues– museums becomes a scientific-modern institution to identify, classify, and name the individual crafts as well as the entire provenance that is Baroda. Thus both native agency and its alternative tools of survey and documentation indigenize the institution of exhibitions to formulate a Baroda court that also becomes the basis of the Baroda Museum collection. In a reciprocal relationship, the Baroda Museum becomes a repository of representative genres and lends itself to exhibition loans and courts, marking a crystallization of the Baroda category.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Finally, the Baroda Museum and the Baroda category dovetail in a national craft collection.

Part I: A ‘Baroda Court’ for a ‘Baroda Provenance’ 4.1 Identification and Promotion of Crafts

Baroda’s case study supplements the existing scholarship to better illuminate native agency in the colonial knowledge-creation project and its representation. This section employs Bernard Cohn’s (1996: 4–5) concept of investigative modalities as the basis of production and validation of knowledge. Locating his scholarship in a Saidian framework, Cohn (1996: 4) explains the British position as one of conquering not just a (p.192) territory but also an epistemological space. ‘This knowledge was to enable the British to classify, categorize, and bound the vast social world that was India so that it could be controlled’ (Cohn 1996: 4–5). Knowledge production by the British brings into play the idea of investigative modalities that typically have two stages: ‘An investigative modality includes the definition of a body of information that is needed, the procedures by which appropriate knowledge is gathered, its ordering and classification, and then how it is transformed into usable forms such as published reports, statistical returns, histories, gazetteers, legal codes, and encyclopedias’ (Cohn 1996: 5). In his comprehensive foreword to Cohn’s work, Nicholas Dirks explains that instruments such as census, surveillance, and so on are the ‘investigative modalities’, which also include documentation, certification, and representation that become the ‘state modalities’ through which the accumulated data becomes ‘usable knowledge’ (Dirks in Cohn 1996: ix, xi, xiii). The relationship between these two stages was always mediated by the European elite even if ‘deficient’, to borrow Dirks’s term (Dirks in Cohn 1996: 83–7; Dirks in Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993: 299, 301–11, 1996: xvi). The case of Baroda, however, demonstrates native participation (without British mediation) in both stages: the ‘investigative’ and ‘state’ modalities and their translation into ‘usable knowledge’. To explain this in a better way, it is important to recall the swaris or district tours undertaken by Sayajirao and his inner coterie from 1881 onwards, as discussed in Chapter 1. These swaris, together with inputs from senior officials, contributed towards the compilation of the first Baroda Gazetteer in 1883 that included information on the crafts among other resources (Elliot 1883: prefatory page). Thus Baroda’s autonomous surveys had begun even before F.A.H. Elliot’s 1883 compilation and before the Revenue and Agricultural Department’s 1884 directive to survey nationwide provincial crafts.1 The emergence of Baroda crafts rode what are identified as the ‘survey’, ‘enumerative’, and ‘museological’ modalities, that is, it encompassed practices of identification and collection of samples, identification of reasonable numbers of representative crafts, and fulfilment of classificatory and taxonomical ordering of the crafts and their visual representation (Cohn 1996: 7–10). Archival data narrates Madhavarao’s early interest in the identification of local crafts, which predates the swaris of 1881. His Page 3 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects identification (p.193) and improvement of local pottery were examined in the previous chapter. Here, examples of Baroda embroidery and lacework are discussed to complete a picture of that late-1870s phase. 4.1.1 Case Study: Baroda Embroidery and Lacework

A memo is testimony to Madhavarao’s agreement to send some specimens of Baroda embroidery for the Livingstone National Bazar in 1877; he regarded this as a good opportunity ‘to bring into prominence in European markets Baroda Manufactures’.2 Madhavarao also sent samples of lace borders made in Baroda as well as those of raw materials used for the lacework, such as silver and gold wires, to the Simla Fine Arts Exhibition, 1879.3 The 25 pieces of lace and the samples of its raw materials sent to the Simla Exhibition entail a precise documentation of the various patterns/designs and kinds of workmanship.4 This memo reflects a detailed survey of design portfolios in lacework available in Baroda and brings to the fore the argument that the loans’ inventory became a primary document to provide stylistic and technical information on local genres. Madhavarao sent specimens of lacework produced by the government workmen attached to the royal palace as well as Gokaldas Atmaram, a specialist supplier of embroidery and lace borders.5 Thus identification of locally produced crafts was not confined to artisans associated with the royal workshops, and instead extended to other producers in the state. A note on the memo instructs the concerned officer to store the samples for future displays.6 Indeed, in an immediate follow-up in 1880, Madhavarao corresponded with the Chamber of Commerce in Bombay for the presentation of 18 samples of locally produced gold and silver lacework in London to ascertain prospects for sale; the samples were forwarded by the Chamber of Commerce in Bombay through Messrs Charles Forbes & Co. to friends in London.7 Though these lace samples were found unsuitable for the English market,8 this exercise represents autonomous efforts in the promotion of local crafts. Two portfolios of lacework were also sent to the 1883 Poona Exhibition of Native Arts and Manufactures.9 These case studies align with the formative period when ivory craftsman Neelakandan Asari, the mica painter from Trichinopoly, and (p.194) Ravi Varma were introduced to the Baroda court by the dewan. Concerted efforts were made towards the patronage of painting and identification of local crafts, a documentation of their stylistic strengths, their promotion in commercial and display contexts, and the consequent elevation of Baroda’s profile as an arts-andcrafts hub. This chain of developments reasserts that there were independent craft surveys within the Baroda administration. As discussed in the previous chapter, surveys of traditional manufactures and ancillary industries were also undertaken by Madhavarao and later T.K. Gajjar (Mehta 1992: 157).10 The following sections will explore how these local surveys were later expanded to meet the growing demands of nurturing an independent Baroda court at colonial displays. The surveys were also extended to follow the central directive to establish provincial museums. Both the idea of a provincial court and a Page 4 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects provincial museum marked a thrust towards the ‘local–provincial–regional’11 and promised a central and unmediated role to Baroda’s investigative modality and its usage. 4.2 Provincial Courts Inform National and Colonial Craft Surveys

The need to have an independent Baroda court may be located in the agendas of exhibition displays, which in turn were informed by provincial surveys. Thus exhibitions moved away from showcasing ‘national displays’ to a display of nuanced information on local and provincial specialties (McGowan 2009: 42, 43). Though this shift towards provincial courts and provincial surveys debuted in the 1880s, it is recorded that the need to know local manufactures arose even for the 1851 display so as to assemble nationwide products and manufactures (McGowan 2009: 36, 37). The East India Company only prepared broad categories of genres as it did not possess the knowledge of where to source these (McGowan 2009: 37). Regional committees relied on local committees to survey manufactures and put together loans or donations of exhibits (McGowan 2009: 36). The continued presence of native experts in preliminary surveys is seen even until the Delhi Durbar Exhibition of 1903 (Sharma in Dehejia 2008: 48). Private collections of maharajas, nawabs, dewans, and tahsildars from Indian provinces were instrumental in the formation of the Loan Gallery at the Delhi Durbar of 1903 (Sharma in Dehejia 2008: 52). (p.195) This brings to the fore the role of collectors and lenders in putting together ‘loans’ inventories’ and reinforces the centrality of this document that represented the post-survey and pre-representation stages. Thus although the 1851 and its subsequent exhibitions displayed national pavilions, various factors led to an increasing emphasis on provincial calibrations, especially in the decade of the 1880s. Provincial surveys were launched as part of the ‘1884 Resolution for Museums and Exhibitions’ by the Department of Revenue and Agriculture of the Indian government (GuhaThakurta 2004: 70, 199).12 This resolution stimulated a nationwide three-tier plan to afford ‘art exhibition–museum–publication’ for every province; it also highlighted ‘insufficient cataloguing and collection’ of indigenous artistic industries and consequently led to a proliferation of provincial surveys.13 Their resultant building of provincial collections was geared towards a central representative collection at the Indian Museum in Calcutta (Guha-Thakurta 2004: 70, 199). Another explanation suggests an ethnographic approach towards the understanding of crafts and craftsmen post 1857 to understand local communities in a better way (McGowan 2009: 42–3). This approach focused on the contexts of craft production and the artisans in addition to the objects in exhibitions post 1880s (McGowan 2009: 42–3). Another interpretation is that this proposal was a late official response to complaints from the likes of Morris and Birdwood on cheap hybrids and declining standards of Indian decorative arts after the 1878 Paris exhibition (Tarapor 1980: 68, 70–2). Hence, in the interest of creating a learning resource for artisans, art school and polytechnic Page 5 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects students, best specimens of local crafts were sought out for provincial museums. These display specimens were aimed at encouraging new experiments in design and workmanship.14 Identification of these genres and their representation at museums were seen as direct means to promote sales and secure their place in commercial markets. Lastly, Indian crafts and design were constantly ferreted out in the interest of using them for British manufactures. The 1884 resolution may also have given a fillip to Baroda’s museum plan, but much like the direct sourcing of polytechnics and workshops from the West, the idea for a museum is attributed to Sayajirao’s Europe trips and his fieldwork for educational projects (Mehta 1995: 3, 11). (p.196) The aforementioned shift towards provincial surveys and their documentation directly shaped exhibitions. The 1886 Indian and Colonial Exhibition’s postexhibition report records: The system adopted for the arrangement of exhibits, however, deserves notice, as it differed in some respects from the classification adopted at previous exhibitions. Exhibits of artware including fabrics were arranged primarily in Provincial Divisions or Courts according to localities of production, instead as heretofore being grouped according to a technical classification … In thus departing, in the case of artware, from the usual method of arrangement, the Government of India was influenced by a desire to illustrate and emphasize the essentially conservative nature of the artistic ideas of the country which, though beginning to yield to the influence of a new industrial development, are still distinguishable by peculiar local characteristics which lend them a special value and attractiveness, and which it is for many reasons desirable to foster and preserve as far as possible.15 If read from the imperialist position, this emphasis on provincial categories and distinguishable characteristics was clearly driven by the need to highlight the ‘otherness’ of Indian manufactures16 against a backdrop of homogenous industrial progress in Britain. From the nationalist position, the yielding of conservative artistic ideas and local characteristics to industrial development proved the adaptability of traditional crafts. Most importantly, their display along categories of definite provenance aided the building of a knowledge base of nationwide crafts. This complex web of agendas made it imperative to reflect the crafts’ changing landscape at the sites of exhibition, documentation, and museums. Without a comprehensive reflection of these changes, neither the imperial nor the nationalist positions would have benefited of these provincial surveys. On the one hand, the nationalist camp required up-to-date compilations of traditional crafts, industrialized crafts, and other genres to secure an extensive national profile, while on the other, the imperial position required knowledge of provincial design portfolios and materials to benefit art schools and British trade (Dutta 2006: 2–7, 125, 129). The evolution of the Museums and Page 6 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Exhibitions Resolution, through revised drafts, shows an acceptance of this transient landscape: it takes note of industrialization of processes of (p.197) production, increase in workshops, experiment and exchange among provincial designs, and so on.17 The idea of a static, pre-capitalist craft scene in India as conceived after 1851 had also clearly changed by the 1880s. It has been highlighted that around the 1880s, much knowledge about India was available than in its preceding stages (Bayly 1996). The changing contexts of craft practices made fresh surveys mandatory, and together they show the contingent space of the colony and its awareness on the part of both nationalist and colonial camps.18 This contemporaneous nature of provincial craft surveys, their need to keep abreast of changes, and the resultant museums set them apart from the older antiquarian and archaeological surveys and their resultant collections. By altering the notion of a static colonial field (Said 1991 [1978]), this argument revises the museological modality, which revolved around the idea of the colony as a vast storehouse and ‘living museum’ (Dirks in Cohn 1996: 78–9). Instead, it shows the crafts and manufactures as a living industry; its transient nature demanded that the practices of survey be current and contemporary to documentation and exhibition projects as in the case of Baroda. At the cost of excluding the Indian prince, English secretaries for the department of exhibitions, native exhibition commissioners, and catalogue writers are often highlighted as key players in reworking the South Asian image at exhibitions to reflect changes (Hoffenberg 2001: 50–2). Here the native prince and his state apparatus ensure the representation of a changing Indian craft scene and greater absorption of peripheral genres within the mainstream. It may be recalled that due to scarce manpower and financial constraints, ‘princely India’ was maintained so as to allow the British cost-effective sociocultural access to several parts of India. The maharaja’s administration could access information on Baroda’s artisans and genres and this information was redeployed in colonial projects. All the same, surveys that were at the basis of output in the form of maps, revenue reports, and gazetteers were not meant for British control of India alone, and instead allowed Indian rulers and princes to define their ideas of political reality (Ramusack 2004: 53). It also remains known that after 1858, the project of knowledge-building by the British focused on the princely states (Ramusack 2004: 88). Thus often local apparatuses meant to fulfil local and national agendas were co-opted by the colonial administration. This convergence shows how national, colonial, and even (p.198) private collecting interests shared the same modalities.19 The next section discusses the ‘work-in-progress’ nature of Baroda’s surveys and some of the practical negotiations of working within the parameters of colonial institutions. 4.3 Strategies and Negotiations for an Independent Baroda Court

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects The reciprocal relationship between the loans’ inventories, exhibitions, and their resultant publications explain the gradual expansion of the Baroda pavilions. It is known that the exhibition commissioners decided the larger storyline and contents of the exhibition (Hoffenberg 2001: xxi, 33–4, 63), but the extent to which the Huzur Office could negotiate a place for artefacts and genres within this pre-decided framework is learnt here. The following archival data in the form of exhibition correspondence, inventories, catalogues, and post-exhibition reports will reveal how select genres gradually qualified as representative of the Baroda category. This section charts Baroda’s participation from being part of the Bombay court in the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition to its arrival as an independent Baroda court by the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. Further on, Baroda’s representation is also examined at the 1902–3 Delhi Durbar Exhibition and the Ahmedabad Industrial Exhibition of 1902. 4.3.1 Case Study I: Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886—Sourcing Crafts, Defining a Baroda Category

The Foreign Department’s correspondence dedicated to the 1886 exhibition proposes the engagement of Sayajirao as royal commissioner and illustrates his spontaneous acceptance of the title.20 Thus in addition to British officials and commercial showmen, native princes, too, were appointed as exhibition commissioners. Sayajirao set up a committee to assemble art manufactures and products from Baroda State that would make for a ‘representative collection’ at the dedicated Baroda court.21 From here, one forays into the practical problems encountered in defining a representative range of Baroda crafts. As yet sufficient numbers of local genres had not qualified as typical samples. At this time survey mechanisms gained momentum to collect and (p.199) define what could become ‘representative’ of Baroda. It was not always easy to furnish a collection ‘exclusively representative of Baroda’ for exhibition loans. As much as the documentation of provincial manufactures led to the identification of provincial typicalities, it also highlighted pan-regional commonalities. Baroda possessed few craft genres that were exclusive to the state, as most others were common across Gujarat or also found in other parts of the Western Presidency. In the context of the 1886 exhibition, the Huzur Cutchery is known to record fewer artisans in Baroda when compared to Ahmedabad and Surat.22 Firstly, while this encouraged a constant search for ‘exclusive crafts’, their shortfall led to the participation of Baroda as a section of the Bombay court.23 This decision made by the Huzur Cutchery reconfirms Baroda’s inability to hold its own as an independent court. Secondly, the commonality of pan-Gujarati genres, paradoxically, helped to highlight those few genres that were indeed exclusive to Baroda. The president of the 1886 exhibition committee, Hayes Sadler, records, ‘Most of the art products obtainable in Baroda being common to the whole of Gujarat it was found impossible to make a collection which would be peculiar to Baroda, in fact but few articles—Pattan pottery work excepted can be classed as

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects solely the products of this state.’24 Thus Patan pottery qualified as truly representative in the absence of higher numbers of exclusive genres. The consistent representation of select genres, inclusion of new ones from polytechnics, workshops, and the royal palace and their repeated display and documentation led to the maturation of an independent Baroda court. This sequence not only evidences a strategy to meet a reasonable number of representative genres, but also displays how each segment signified handiwork and/or mechanization without which the expression of indigenous modernity would be incomplete. Unlike Jaipur that had a strong profile as a centre for the crafts, Baroda had to create one. As analysed by Vibhuti Sachdev (2012: 180), ‘[A]wareness of the artistic identity of the state [Jaipur] was already so acute that there was little need to rethink it. There was instead a question of how best to promote and update it’. Baroda’s problem was to first identify a representative set to be able to emerge as a craft centre. The 1886 loans’ inventory tells us that a total 772 articles were loaned by Baroda State (229 by the durbar and 543 purchased/specially (p.200) commissioned articles also funded by the durbar).25 The following groupings are arrived at to highlight the predominant genres: 1. Traditional crafts of Baroda: Patan pottery, Bilimora ivory inlay work and sandalwood work, bison horn products, Visnagar brassware, and brass and copperware from Dabhoi and Kadi. 2. Objects of private royal consumption: specimens of jewellery and textiles lent by the durbar and purchased from statewide suppliers. 3. Royal ceremonial and pageantry items: silver model of a state elephant, silver bullock carriage, and a silver dumni (palanquin); photographs of actual state processions to depict the original event (it cannot be ascertained if the silver model of a state elephant is the same as the one currently in the Baroda Museum and discussed in the previous chapter against the Tantalus). 4. Ethnological collection: plaster models of occupational and ethnic types. 5. Native craftsmanship and design at the site of industrial schools: specially commissioned Baroda Screen, Baroda Balcony, and Pigeon House. 6. Miscellaneous: marble knick-knacks, gold and silver thread embroidery, carpets; calico printing, fabrics, and weaves (these may include embroidery specimens, though it cannot be ascertained if the pieces belong to the same genre that Madhavarao promoted in 1879–80).26 Making loans’ inventories involved statewide sourcing of genres and objects and of royal objects within the palace, chiefly the khangi department. Firstly, the committee to survey and select local crafts was appointed by the maharaja.27 Page 9 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Dinshah Ardeshir Talyarkhan, the municipal commissioner of Baroda State, was the honorary secretary of the committee. He was also in charge of the Arts and Manufactures Collections along with the president Captain Hayes Sadler.28 Secondly, the durbar was the chief sponsor, facilitator, and lender of all 772 objects from Baroda.29 Informal notes in internal communications show instructions from the maharaja and a process of shortlisting, selections, and rejections.30 Final decisions were made by Sayajirao and the dewan or the officials of the Huzur Office. For sourcing royal objects definite participation of the maharaja is seen (p.201) in the final selection process and one such example is presented here. Baroda’s impressive collection of pageantry and transport items was clearly much in demand for exhibitions. The maharajas’ silver shikar damni (hunting carriage) and the silver zenana (women’s) carriage were originally requested as loan items to illustrate native modes of conveyance.31 Since both carriages were in use for the maharaja’s cheetah hunt and the ladies of the palace, a silver damni was lent by Shet Haribhakti32 to substitute the original request.33 This evidences how selections were clearly guided by decisions made by the royal family, especially since items of personal use often constituted loans. In addition to sourcing, the definite agency of the Huzur Office can be located in the loans’ inventory’s negotiation with exhibition storylines, as seen in the case of the 1893 World’s Fair that is discussed next. 4.3.2 Case Study II: Chicago World’s Fair, 1893—Negotiating Loans’ Inventories and Exhibition Storylines

The Chicago World’s Fair, also known as the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893, announced the official appointment of S.J. Tellery & Co. (by the government of India) as commissioner to represent Indian art ware and art manufactures. S.J. Tellery’s engagement attests the role of commercial showmen in scripting exhibition storylines and conceiving exhibition design. By 23 April 1892, the loans’ inventory for the exhibition, including items to be presented to the Chicago Museum, was drawn out by the Huzur Office.34 Once again Dinshah Talyarkhan, who was in charge of the arts and manufactures for the 1886 exhibition, was entrusted with the presentation of objects to the Chicago Museum and Exhibition.35 This 1893 inventory reflects Baroda’s preparation for display along the lines of a full-scale provincial court. Rightly so, since Tellery & Co.’s initial plan was to highlight the ‘place of manufacture’ of exhibits although they would be shown together in a single court. Tellery & Co. offered the option of having independent provincial groups within the larger court.36 Soon after, Tellery & Co. requested articles along ethnological categories, that is, they requested Baroda to send ‘illustrative exhibits’ (models) to complement categories drawn out by the commissioners.37 Despite preparing a backup list to respond to the ethnological categories,38 the (p.202) Huzur Cutchery replied to S.J. Tellery & Co. on 8 October 1892, saying H.H.’s government had already selected articles for the exhibition and did not intend to change the list.39 Baroda persisted with its proposition to have an independent court and finally Page 10 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects showed the entire range of items from its original list.40 This decision attests Baroda’s marked inclination to promote the inventory originally readied on 23 April 1892. The princely state remained focused on the display of a wide range of its wares despite the fact that Tellery & Co. had sourced large numbers of objects from vendors in Baroda and across Gujarat independently.41 The pivotal position of exhibition commissioners as selectors and evaluators of exhibition contents (Hoffenberg 2001: xxi–xxii, 63) is usurped as the private lender in this case is a co-producer of the exhibition content. While the Huzur Cutchery did not alter its list, it negotiated a fit for its inventory within the framework provided by Tellery & Co. An examination of the 1893 Baroda loan42 demonstrates the continued presence of popular genres from the 1886 loan and the inclusion of contemporary experiments drawn from the maharaja’s private collecting and institutional domains: jewels, costumes, and curiosities from the royal palace are represented in photographs. Ceremonial and pageantry items, however, continue to grace the list—this time in the form of ‘models’ of a state carriage and state elephant in blackwood. Gold and silver jewels may have come from the royal collection or may have been purchased. Patan pottery, carved and inlaid sandalwood boxes of Billimora, and Kadi and Patan brasswork sustain their presence to represent traditional industries. The Kalabhavan marks its debut with lacquerware and furniture. General woodwork is shown in varied applications from fruits to photo frames. One also sees that the element of typical vernacular design, first displayed through the Baroda Screen and the Baroda Balcony in 1886, now matures into a composite display of site-specific remains and complementary reproductions or models. Thus original pieces of wood carvings on doors, panels, cornices, verandahs, balconies, and pillars from sites such as Dabhoi, Petlad, Sogitra, Vaso, Patan, Sidhpur, Vadnagar, and Baroda are displayed with a carved screen and models of ancient carvings. Archaeology’s focus on conservation and documentation in the 1880s brought about an urgent need to document sites and monuments through drawings, photography, and the (p.203) production of casts for models; these reproductions would eventually be housed in museums as records of the originals (Guha-Thakurta 2004: 55–61; Hoffenberg 2001: 156– 7, 164–5). Barbara Ramusack explains that just as colonial and postcolonial administrations used archaeological sites and museums to legitimate their power and control, princes claimed archaeological sites through lavish publications and museums to build an Indian identity.43 Sayajirao published a photographic album of Baroda’s chief archaeological site Dabhoi in 1888 (Burgers and Cousens 1888). Architectural fragments from Dabhoi and other sites at the 1893 exhibition confirm a definite influence of the contours of art and archaeological history and the development of museums in the shaping of the state’s inventory of loans and reinforce the latter’s contemporaneous nature. Referencing the state’s actual

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects geography through these site-specific remains must have aided the authentication of the Baroda provenance. The evolving nature of Baroda’s inventory of loans is also reflected in its high-art exhibits. As opposed to small loans of two to three genre paintings of women at the 1879 Simla exhibition, 1884 Cutch exhibition, and the subsequent Poona exhibitions, the 1893 loan reflects the arrival of a fully developed, independent series of 10 paintings of Indian women by Ravi Varma. The artist had produced ethnic types throughout his exhibitions’ career starting in 1873. However, this was the first time that the subject was displayed as a series and, indeed reinforced Baroda’s position as Varma’s leading collector and lender. Moreover, Varma’s art became an important high-art component of the Baroda loans. His painting of diverse ethnic types in a single composition, Galaxy of Musicians, became an iconic and summary representation of the Chicago loan series. Interestingly, it was not the first such composition, as has been a long-held view. An oil painting representing a group of native females of different nationalities of India44 was sent for the Simla Fine Art Exhibition of 1879.45 The same painting or another similar composition titled Group of Native Ladies of Different Castes also appears in the loan sent to the 1880 Poona Fine Arts Exhibition.46 The artist’s name is not mentioned in the sources, but it can be conjectured that since Varma had not arrived in Baroda yet, this painting was likely by Tiroovengada Naidu who painted genre subjects and was actively represented by Madhavarao between 1878 and 1881. These (p.204) examples demonstrate how particular themes maintained a sustained presence in Baroda’s collection through Madhavarao and Sayajirao and were developed further to constitute a series that expanded Baroda’s loans. 4.3.3 Case Study III: Delhi Durbar Exhibition, 1902–3—Classification, Naming, and Prize-giving for Value Attribution

Baroda’s participation at the Chicago Exposition reminds us that new objects could be accommodated in prevalent classifications and exhibition storylines. The all-encompassing rubric of ‘ethnological collections’ or ‘oriental manufactures’ allowed the native lender to create space for loan items of his own choice. The added possibility of creating fresh taxonomies to suit new objects was also actively explored (Hoffenberg 2001: 26). Practices of taxonomy, classification, and collection determined by the British created, inflated, or deflated the value of objects (Cohn 1992, 1996: 76–7, 90–1, 96–7). This means that the value and meaning of objects was fabricated against a growing backdrop of colonial-survey modalities and their connotative naming systems (Guha-Thakurta 2004: 16–18, 49–50, 76–7), as can be noted in George Watt’s (1904) documentation of the Delhi Durbar Exhibition of 1902–3.47 Baroda’s ‘anklets’ that were hitherto classed as part of ‘ornaments’, were now positioned by Watt as an autonomous subcategory in the ‘moulded and chased work in silver and copper’ that finds special mention. This medium is used to produce ‘massive anklets’ (Watt 1904: 34). The new independent category of anklets with Page 12 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects a new taxonomy now realigns with the highly commended technique of ‘moulded and chased work’ to derive value from it. One sees that these anklets qualify as a speciality on the basis of their prizewinning status; emphasis is also laid on the pattern or design of commended pieces and their producers. ‘Commended-silver anklet (maize pattern), made at Dabhoi in Baroda (No. 1501), Rs 85; Hurgovind Hira of Dabhoi’s massive copper kalla (anklet), chrysanthemum pattern is commended (No.1078); Rs 10’ (Watt 1904: 58, 61). This practical apparatus of classification and taxonomy (Breckenridge 1989) helped to identify and qualify increasing numbers of genres and techniques as typical of Baroda: shields and boxes made of rhinoceros hide and Baroda spoons produced from buffalo horns were documented as distinct Baroda types in Watt’s (1904: 34) catalogue; (p. 205) silver and copper repousse work of Baroda found mention as ‘Peculiar Repousse’ for its unique characteristics. Watt’s catalogue demonstrates an inclusion of new genres, the keen attention paid to the processes of production, discussion of technical or stylistic strengths, and recognition of individual artisans. This burgeoning segment of information must have been furnished through local committees, which, in the first place, identified the genres and their producers. In addition to the expanding structure of classifications as seen in the case of kallas from Dabhoi, prize sponsorships and the human agency activated objects and further consolidated the position of new local genres. The foremost example is seen in Tiroovengada Naidu bagging the ‘Extra Prizes given by Sir T. Madhava Row KCSI for the encouragement of native art’ at the Poona Fine Arts Exhibition of 1878.48 Secondly, the Gaekwad’s gold medal was awarded to Ravi Varma’s A Nair Beauty at the Poona Exhibition of 1880 (Varma 1964: 12). Madhavarao had sent Varma’s work from the Travancore collection to Poona (Varma 1964: 12). As discussed in Chapter 2, the dewan was preparing the ground to introduce Varma to Baroda. At the 1881–2 Madras Fine Arts Society Exhibition, the Gaekwad’s prize was sponsored to support native artists.49 Considering Varma was introduced to the durbar in 1881, and Naidu was in Baroda until c. 1884, this prize may have been instituted bearing either or both protégés in mind.50 In the indigenous craft genres, prizes were announced for brass and copper work.51 It can be conjectured that these prizes may have been sponsored in the interest of promoting Kadi and Visnagar brass and copper works from Baroda. At the 1890 Western India Fine Arts Society Exhibition in Poona, Sayajirao sponsored prizes for carving in wood, metal work, and gold or silver work.52 It may be recalled that under Gajjar woodwork became an important component at the Kalabhavan from the 1890s. The 1892 exhibition also showed continuity of prizes for the same categories.53 A similar preference for local craftsmen as prizewinners at the grand Jaipur exhibition of 1883 is noted in the exhibition’s winners’ lists (Tillotson 2004). Clearly, these prizes enhanced the value of particular artists and genres and, in the process, the value of the lending collection as well. Prize sponsorship was thus selfserving for the collector. Page 13 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects From the theoretical perspective, these ideas of selection and value ascription are important to object and collection studies. Susan Pearce (p.206) (1994: 10) goes beyond the technology, material, content, and form to regard the exercise of ‘selection’ as ascribing value to an object. Susan Stewart (2003: 151–4), too, argues for the selection and subjectivity of the collector as attributing a new context and meaning to the collection/its objects. As observed, the native agent selects particular genres, includes these in his loans’ inventory, and provides them the contexts of exhibition displays and awards. This view also links with James Clifford’s contention that in addition to the inherent meaning of objects, their ‘present contexts’ are crucial to assign them renewed value, status, and meaning (Clifford in During 1999: 57–8, 63). Apparatuses of classification and taxonomy are also seen as present contexts that extend a community and value to objects that eventually form a collection (Clifford in During 1999: 57–8, 63; Stewart 2003: 151, 162). These theoretical ideas strengthen the role of human agency, that is, the native collector and his team, for value attribution to the selected genres. Tirthankar Roy (2006: 2, 37, 39–40) relocates rural crafts in regional patterns of industrialization due to the ‘colonial encounter’ and ‘globalization’. Political decentralization of the Mughal dominion led to a dispersal of traditionally known craft cities. In a reverse trend, increasing commercialization due to colonization allowed the dispersed cities and rural bases to enjoy wider, regional, non-local markets (Roy 2006: 25–7, 40). Through its art school and the exhibition of 1883, Jaipur, too, consolidated its own position as a leading craft and trade centre and hence tradesmen from other states came to Jaipur as the city promised them a regional presence and scope for international trade (Sachdev 2012: 176, 178). In the case of Baroda, outside the scope of its polytechnic, the royal collector and his team exercised their selection to place lesser-known rural crafts in a Baroda configuration. By virtue of this regional placement the crafts were promoted in the space of exhibitions and the global marketplace. Thus the native collector’s multiple agencies as the selector, lender, member of the local exhibition committee, and prize sponsor resulted in increasing representation and value ascription for local genres. Their rapid visibility at exhibitions allowed a reworking of the Indian identity.54 In the absence of the statesman as arbiter, several indirectly ruled British territories and their crafts, such as Dabhoi’s copper kallas and Baroda’s rhinoceros-horn products, might not have found inclusion in princely or British India, (p.207) and consequently remained outside regional and international markets. Interestingly, Congress-led industrial exhibitions and the Kalabhavan, too, gave ample representation to statewide crafts.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects 4.3.4 Case Study IV: Ahmedabad Industrial Exhibition, 1902—Contemporary Manufactures and Baroda’s Industrial Profile

After the convergence of traditional crafts in an expanding Baroda category, the Ahmedabad Industrial Exhibition of 1902 reveals the parallel importance of contemporary technical experiments by the Kalabhavan to enhance Baroda’s profile. As facets of the Congress, industrial exhibitions worked as national projects to appraise the state of industry in India. The Congress discharged its duties in political matters; the social sphere came under the purview of the Indian Social Conference (Panikkar 2007: 52) and the industrial exhibitions reviewed the state of craft and industry. The industrial (Congress) exhibition was not just another exhibition venue in the global circuit of exhibitions but a forum to implement ideas and plans for India’s economic welfare as discerned from Sayajirao’s speeches at the Congress sessions of 1902 and 1906. Nationalists such as Sayajirao obviously viewed these exhibition displays as furthering a national narrative of economic planning and policy. Consequently, Baroda State’s loans drew a different value from these Congress editions. In the interest of national appraisals of industry and of the improvement of local manufactures, industrial exhibitions demonstrated much enthusiasm towards displaying ‘up-to-date’ representations of provincial wares with ‘up-to-date processes’ of production that were interesting and instructive (Gaekwad 1902 speech cited in Soares 1933: 70; McGowan 2009: 43–6).55 As a result, items from previous loans’ inventories were repeated in new ones and fresh committees were also appointed to identify new genres. For instance, the spokesperson for the Ahmedabad host committee requested ‘the cordial help and co-operation of our Baroda officers in the collection of useful and valuable Exhibits of arts and industries in our part of the country’.56 Ahmedabad’s proximity to Baroda and the invitation to Sayajirao to preside over its inauguration entrenched him further in this exhibition project. Communication associated with this exhibition not only demonstrates Baroda’s mature position as a lender and supporter (p. 208) to the Ahmedabad exhibition, but also Baroda’s confidence to function as a host venue. Dewan Manibhai’s communication from Ootacamund, where Sayajirao was holidaying then, brings to the fore the maharaja’s thoughts to hold such an exhibition of Baroda’s ‘arts and industries’ in connection with the Kalabhavan or otherwise.57 Later the vidyadhikari (education minister) is given room for decision-making about the Baroda edition of the industrial exhibition.58 This reaffirms a distinct correlation between the vidyadhikari’s survey and the decision to organize a Baroda edition, that is, a correlation between the survey and the making of a loans’ inventory. This edition was meant to be a prelude or a component of the Ahmedabad Exhibition. Finally, it was merged with the Ahmedabad edition to enrich it but with an independent Baroda court.59 This example confirms the role of local officials in the promotion of arts and crafts through the state apparatus and exhibitions. It also points to the firm inclusion Page 15 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects of the Kalabhavan and its products as ‘representative’ of Baroda. Baroda State thus received a new impetus to host exhibitions in close connection with its polytechnic and manufactories,60 which, as examined in the previous chapter, were removed from the traditional contexts of craft production and from pure ‘handi’crafts. This example demonstrates that stylistic purity of the arts and crafts and the idea of a definite source from which they originate is indeed a myth.61 The inclusion of the Kalabhavan merits a return to the Baroda Screen, which was touted as an ‘authentic’ example of Baroda workmanship and design created under European supervision. It was produced in a context that replicated an industrial and art school in the absence of the Kalabhavan. Now the products from the Kalabhavan were fully integrated into the evolving category of Baroda crafts and on the native agent’s own terms. While the Kalabhavan’s products supplemented Baroda’s loans, the colonial establishment, too, aspired to reflect modern, manufactured crafts through provincial museums. The revised draft scheme of the 1884 resolution positioned local manufactories and workshops as sourcing grounds to select best workmen and exemplary provincial specimens.62 Additionally, as noted above, the Baroda edition of the Ahmedabad exhibition, too, was planned on the strength of the Kalabhavan products. Thus the logic of capital and technology sat easy in Sayajirao’s policies; it had effective (p.209) and far-reaching consequences not only in constructing a Baroda category but also in expanding national Congress exhibitions and the colonial craft surveys. The polytechnic’s products were loaned to international and provincial industrial exhibitions and those held in conjunction with the Congress sessions across India. The list of awards conferred upon the Kalabhavan demonstrates how lacquerwork and furniture particularly found favour and came to be recognized as typical of Baroda State. The Kalabhavan’s articles were eventually also displayed at the Baroda Museum,63 thereby fulfilling the 1883 resolution’s threetier plan to realize provincial museums, exhibitions, and publications. Additionally, the Kalabhavan facilitated representation of hereditary artisans at exhibitions. The Kalabhavan’s workshop undertook the responsibility to collect loans from artisans within the region to forward them to Mysore, bear the expenses of these external loans, and arrange for their safe return.64 British-run art schools did not work with artisans in the same manner. For them protectionism and promotion ended with the enrolment of the artisan as student. Thus, in addition to its own products, the Kalabhavan became a nodal agency to represent traditional industries. Several candidates also produced fine-arts specimens of a very high order, such as a portrait of Sayajirao in a brass plaque and a marble bust of the maharaja by one Shivalal Ugarchand. The calibre of these works, firmly established through the fine modelling and sharp detailing, reflect the arrival of the Kalabhavan as a Page 16 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects school that had gone beyond being a mere industry-oriented polytechnic. This new collective of contemporary technical experiments, fine arts, and older crafts derived value from its affiliation with a common ‘Baroda’ provenance that also carried the weight of royal objects.

Figure 4.1 Sayajirao Gaekwad III embossed by an unknown artist at Kalabhavan in brass plaque (1906). Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: A.8.188. Photographs: Manish Chauhan.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects 4.4 Weight of Royal Objects in the Baroda Court

Alongside traditional crafts and contemporary experiments, Baroda’s ‘provincial’ category concurred with the weight of a royal denomination that reinvigorated its value. For example, a silver filigree model of a state elephant with a gold gilt howdah finds mention in George Watt’s (1904: 444) catalogue. Again, whether this silver model is the same as the one (p.210) (p.211) loaned to the 1886 exhibition and/or the one currently displayed at the Baroda Museum cannot be ascertained. However, it emphasizes the point that select items from the royal collection became permanent fixtures at the Baroda court and were extended to the Baroda Museum. The continued presence of the elephant and

Figure 4.2 Sayajirao Gaekwad III sculpted in marble by Shivalal Ugarchand at Kalabhavan.

howdah is indicated in the loan made to the Paris exhibition of

Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not

190065 as well as the 1911 Old Bombay Exhibition.66 Thus at the basis of this integration of the provincial and the royal was the loans’ inventory, followed by the catalogue.

to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: Ch-5 P.G.2.33. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Like the elephant and howdah, textiles of personal use from the private chambers such as the maharani’s patola saris, brocades and silks that were seen at the 1886 display continued to typify the Baroda category. (p.212) (p.213) Their presence lent value to qualify contemporary experiments within the same genre: for instance, Rama Chand Mul Chand’s patolas from Patan were ‘commended’ by the exhibition judges as contemporary examples of the same craft (seen in the maharani’s patola saris) (Watt 1904: 337). Thus items from the royal private chambers were seen as older, scintillating examples of ‘handi’craft and helped to ascribe value to contemporary products in the same genre. One of the benefits of taxonomies and classification was the regrouping or realignment of diverse items— in this case, objects of private royal consumption and contemporary patola weaves, whereby one gained from its affiliation with the other.

Figure 4.3 The silver model of an elephant fully caparisoned for Dussehra procession with gilt howdah by an unknown artist. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: A.3.45. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

Objects of royal consumption also found increasing representation in the category of ethnographic pictures or collections. For instance, photographs of ceremonial pageants were regularly displayed with actual pageantry items or their large or miniature reproductions. As late as 1924, at the British Empire Exhibition, we see pictures of gold and silver guns and a royal drum.67 These items are classed as ‘Typical views of Baroda’ and hence presented as ethnographic pictures.68 This trend started with the 1886 display where photographs of royal processions were shown for their ethnological value; the 1893 Chicago Exposition also displayed pictures of royal costumes and jewellery in addition to pageantry items. Through these pictures the pageantry items’ Page 19 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects original context of use and the associated paraphernalia were shown. These ethnological objects had enjoyed a prized place even within Baroda’s royal palace, since private collecting dedicated a fair amount of its resources to document the pageantry items. As noted in Chapter 1, natural-history painter Marianne North (1894: 76) was commissioned to document the famous Baroda gold and silver guns, bullocks, saddlery, state elephants with their ornaments, and the maharani’s gold carriage. The Baroda court also invited the portraitist Monsieur Druet to paint pageants and cavalry soldiers.69 Through animals, carriages, artillery, and soldiers, collectors such as Sayajirao offered new royal themes to the painting of natural history and portraits. Simultaneously, he enriched the genre of ‘Typical Baroda Scenes’ with these royal subjects. The genre of Baroda scenes, from the days of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, generally consisted of natural history, people engaged in religious or social (p.214) rituals and customs, and castebased or occupational types. These themes interested army officers and civil servants stationed in Baroda or passing through the city. Some renowned scenes are Thomas Postans’s Part of Hindoo Temple at Baroda; Captain R.M. Grindlay’s Preparation for a Suttee/The Immolation of a Hindoo Widow; and A View of the Vishwamitri River Bridge, Baroda (Sheikh 1997: 40). Grindlay’s views of Baroda were published as part of Scenery, Costumes, and Architecture Chiefly on the Western Side of India (1826) accompanied by historical and contemporary information of the sites (Melville 1826). Several locations were reproduced later through photographs. Pictures of pageantry items now affiliated with this category of ethnological ‘Baroda’ views at exhibitions and derived fresh value from it. (p.215) (p.216)

Figure 4.4 Preparation for a sati practice (the immolation of a Hindu widow) painted by Robert M. Grindlay, c. 1806

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects AD, engraved by R.G. Reeves, and etched by J. Willis and H. Melville. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

Figure 4.5 A view of the Vishwamitri river bridge, Baroda, painted by Robert M. Grindlay, c. 1806 AD, engraved by C. Bentley, and etched by J. Willis and H. Melville. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Pageantry items had been incepted in the scheme of colonial exhibitions starting with the 1851 display. George Birdwood’s (1880: 179) survey of 1878 also dedicated a section to trappings and caparisons. To say that these items were proposed by exhibition commissioners, imperial officers, and commercial showmen in the interest of juxtaposing oriental riches with Western industrial goods would be to miss the ‘other agency’, that of the native collector– lender and his officers. They

Figure 4.6 A view of the bridge on the Vishwamitri river.

positioned these items as recognizable fixtures in an

Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda.

evolving category of typical provincial crafts. The private

Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

chambers of the Lakshmi Vilas were an important component in lending typicality to this provincial category. Gradually, provincial courts enjoyed association with their native royal items: Vizianagaram was increasingly identified with its royal howdahs and Travancore was known for its ivory thrones. This search for the typical had become a shared agenda by the colonial and national projects in the common space of the exhibition. Thus, in effect, the two agencies negotiated their own positions through the complementary scope of ‘alternative readings’ offered by the exhibitions’ apparatus and their taxonomies (Hoffenberg 2001: xviii). Despite the exhibitions’ budgetary constraints, the need to complete the picture of the British empire with lush oriental objects was imperative. Hence royal collections supplemented Indian produce and manufactures. Collecting objects from the ‘Baroda Durbar’ was part of this routine to include royal courts, especially since it was one of the wealthiest princely states. John Griffiths, the superintendent of the J.J. School of Art, was deputed to make representative collections of the Western Presidency for the Calcutta Exhibition of 1883; he requested the Baroda court to make a preliminary selection of samples of ‘artware, jewellery, fabrics and other articles of adornment and luxury’ to prepare the Baroda loan.70 Thus without the representation of its associated royal collection, a provincial court, and consequently a provincial category, might have remained incomplete.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects 4.5 Remembering through Exhibition Catalogues

Having noted the expansion of the loans’ inventory from the 1886 to the 1893 and 1902–3 exhibitions, the next task is to unravel how (p.217) these emerging categories and objects lasted beyond the ephemera of visual displays to be reinforced as Baroda’s representative arts. Here, the function of documentation or exhibition catalogues comes into play in addition to the local committee’s survey and formulation of loans’ inventories. It is impossible to point to a precise sequential exchange between local surveys, loans’ inventories, displays, and catalogues. Both these trajectories of survey–inventories and display– documentation enjoyed a reciprocal relationship in entrenching a Baroda category. This argument does not undermine the primacy of the local survey and its resultant loan inventory. It contends that the inventories certainly take precedence in creating and augmenting the Baroda category; simultaneously, the domain of the catalogue and its classificatory systems ascribe value for the Baroda provenance even after the exhibition display. George Birdwood’s 1878 survey that became the handbook of the 1880 Paris Exposition qualifies some crafts as typical of Baroda and others as being representative of Bombay Presidency/Gujarat/other provinces of Gujarat (Birdwood 1880). From among those genres noted by Birdwood, we find the continued presence of Bombay inlaid boxes, furniture, and earthen baked jars in the 1886 Baroda loan.71 Interestingly, several genres that were to become typical samples in 1886 or later are missing from Birdwood’s then-comprehensive documentation. This reinforces the point that the category of local crafts was an evolving one.72 The 1886 display benefited from the JIAI that was launched in the same year as a follow-up to the provincial surveys mandated by the 1884 Museums and Exhibitions Resolution.73 The JIAI remained true to its founding mission: documentation of ‘the history of particular arts and handicrafts, especially with reference to designs and forms, and the economical advancement of existing arts and handicrafts, prominence however being given to the latter’.74 The JIAI often reported on the ‘provincial courts’ at colonial exhibitions to meet its requirement of craft identification from particular regions. As a result, the loans’ inventory of the native collector that formed the basis of the provincial court aided the JIAI’s craft-identification project. This practice is exemplified in B.A. Gupte’s (1886: 126–33, colour plates) documentation of the Baroda court, its loans, and their accompanying coloured illustrations. (p.218) (p.219) (p. 220)

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Gupte belonged to the new breed of Western-educated Indian or gentlemen scholars and professionals (GuhaThakurta 2004: xxiii, 86, 89, 96, 112, 116). He was especially recognized for his knowledge of the manufactures of the Western Presidency and was deputed for associated jobs.75 He may have exercised his own discretion in the choice of items he highlighted in the discussion: for instance, Gupte (1886: 132) commends Visnagar brassware and brass and copperware from Dabhoi and Kadi. Secondly, his presence in London also made him aware of the public and media reception of these items: Gupte informed Baroda about the publication of illustrations of the Pigeon House and the silver carriage in London.76 The Pigeon House is also discussed at length in Gupte’s own essay. Also, his contact with Baroda provided Gupte with information on artisans and processes of production. For instance, he shows his awareness of the field through his writing: Rao Bahadur Lakshman Jagannath deputed Sorabji Jamasji of Billimora, a prizewinner at the Calcutta exhibition of 1883, to produce select works for 1886 (Gupte 1886: 131–2). A very large proportion of the workers at Bombay and Surat are now Paris (sic),77 while at Billimoria, in the Page 24 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Baroda Territory, where one Sorabji Jamasji is acknowledged to be the best workman, they are all Parsis. His Highness, the Gaikwar’s Committee, under the Presidentship of Rav Bahadur Lakshuman Jajanatu, the Resident Minister of the State, contributed a large and varied collection of the inlaid ivory and sandal-wood work to the Calcutta International Exhibition in 1883, and deputed Sorabji Jamasji of Billimoria, the chief workman, to arrange and remain in charge, with the result of a very large sale and his obtaining a medal of merit. Thus encouraged, Sorabji has manufactured for this Exhibition a very representative and carefully constructed collection, with which the Baroda Committee did well in not over-stocking their space. As is usually seen at all Exhibitions, work which is very much inferior in design, badly joined and clumsily got up, is generally seen lying in heaps on stalls, to the discomfort of a careful examiner of art work, to the disappointment of the unwary purchaser, and to the ultimate discouragement and ruin of the industry. It was, therefore, essentially necessary and prudent to select only the best of each variety of design and shape, and we are glad to see that the Baroda Committee has done so. The collection sent is quite Page 25 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects sufficient (p.221) to show what a skilful artisan can produce under qualified supervision. (Gupte 1886: 131–2) The native artisan’s ‘supervision’, in this case, clearly belongs to the local Baroda Committee and particularly to Lakshman Jagannath, unlike European supervision in the case of Keshav Mistry and his products, the Baroda Screen and the Pigeon House. This detailed knowledge of Sorabji’s presence at the 1883 exhibition and his subsequent engagement with the 1886 display confirms Jagannath’s agency in the identification and selection of craftsmen. Moreover, information compiled through these local ‘survey and sourcing exercises’ was shared with catalogue writers such as Gupte. This proves the unmediated representation of local surveys and information at the display and documentation stages. Thus local surveys and their compilation of information became alternative modalities in the making of a crafts’ knowledge. And dedicated essays such as the one in the JIAI or other exhibition catalogues documented this knowledge to make it ‘usable’ (Dirks in Cohn 1996: ix, xi, xiii). Finally, these illustrated catalogues made centres of artistic production recognizable, thereby allowing them to emerge as a Page 26 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects provenance. As much as the JIAI Figure 4.7 (this and the facing page) of 1886 forged the idea of a Colour plates for Baroda court at the Baroda provenance, a fourColonial and Indian Exhibition (1886), volume production by Maharaja published in B.A. Gupte (1886), ‘The Madho Singh, Memorials of the Baroda Court’, The Journal of Indian Art Jeypore Exhibition (1884), and Industry, I, pp. 82, 126–33. which served as a Courtesy of NCAA, Lahore. documentation of the 1883 Jaipur exhibition, constructed a Jaipur provenance (Hendley 1884). Sets of the Jeypore volumes, incidentally also printed by the same London-based publisher of the JIAI, W. Griggs and Sons, were gifted by the maharaja to museums, libraries, and individuals across the world to create unprecedented awareness about Jaipur’s artistic achievements (Ray 2014: 205–6; Tillotson 2004: 119). Displays and documentation together became resource guides for visitors, collectors, and exhibition committees and groomed their knowledge of provincial specialties. The plethora of print culture at exhibitions may well have started off the idea of ‘star pieces’. Baroda’s officers loaned the Baroda Screen, the Baroda Balcony, and the Pigeon House for subsequent exhibitions after 1886. In the absence of visual materials, it remains to be verified if the subsequent loans were the same display pieces from 1886 or fresh commissions. However, the three pieces and their replicas began to represent a certain large-scale representative ‘type’ for Baroda. (p.222) When the Chicago Exposition requested ‘models of buildings in a bazaar shewing78 shop or shops and residences, combined under one roof’,79 the Baroda officers proposed four models: Grain Seller’s Shop; Sandal Carver’s house, Billimora; Pigeon House, Baroda; and one of the principal ruins of Champaner.80 The Baroda Screen, too, is included in the inventory for the exposition.81 Exhibition committees, too, requested the same objects repeatedly. The Poona Exhibition Committee of 1888 had begun to associate Baroda with specific genres. ‘The Committee would be very anxious to receive from you state samples of pigeon house, woodcarving, brass ware, arms, inlaid boxes, stone carving, pottery, calico printing and silk cloths.’82 Thus despite the fact that the Pigeon House produced for the 1886 display was a reproduction of an actual architectural genre and was hence more of an ethnological exhibit, it was perceived as a ‘typical example’ of Baroda craft and enjoyed immense popularity. Simultaneously, with the help of catalogue records, native officers were regularly identified as specialists for the sourcing of provincial wares. The honorary secretary of the Poona Exhibition Committee proposed Dinshah Ardeshir Taleyarkhan’s appointment as supervisor to make the collection since ‘he knows exactly what articles would be of artistic and industrial interest’.83 Gupte was regarded as the specialist for the entire Western Presidency and now Taleyarkhan came to be known as the Baroda specialist. Likewise, T.N. Mukharji Page 27 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects (1888) of the Economic and Art Museum of Calcutta was the other India specialist. He headed the central office for the collection of Indian exhibits for the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888 and authored a survey catalogue for the same (Mukharji 1888). Despite their indispensable role in fieldwork and acquisition, native informants were almost always excluded from the classification, valuation, and the final decision-making process for institutional collections of colonial India (Cohn 1996: 86; Dirks in Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993: 301, 310). Only a select segment of British officials valued the role of native informants. This is evidenced in Colin Mackenzie’s Mysore Survey (1799–1809) that positioned his native informant, interpreter, and linguist, Kavelli Venkata Boria and later Letchmia, at the forefront of the project as reliable and indispensable (Dirks in Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993: 292–5). For, according to Mackenzie, the project of writing an Indian history that entailed collection of source material could not be (p.223) detached from Indians (Dirks in Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993: 281–2, 292–5). Additionally, Mackenzie’s modes of collection gave ample room to native voices (Dirks in Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993: 308). However, a final loss of the native voice marked the transfer of knowledge and authority from the local to the colonial context. This was especially seen in the final instance when Mackenzie failed to produce a master catalogue of the surveys before his death and the establishment hired a ‘deranged antiquarian’, William Taylor, for completing the project instead of the native agents (Dirks in Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993: 306–7, 310). Unlike the Borias, Gupte, Jagannath, and Taleyarkhan did not remain confined to the investigative stages but led projects all the way till the final representation stage; their voices could be heard in the catalogue texts and their authority was recognized by the colonial establishment. Commercial showmen such as Tellery & Co. engaged for the Chicago Exposition of 1893 and colonial officials such as John Griffiths for the Calcutta International Exhibition of 1883 especially requested the service of local officers to get acquainted with local manufactures and receive relevant information.84 Perhaps the difference lay in the fact that the Borias were not British-educated gentlemen like the Baroda officers and hence not regarded as experts. However, one contends that all of them were ‘native informants’ since Baroda was an indirectly ruled state and hence that much more private and native. Colonial historiography’s dependence on the native informant is often pointed only in its early stages; that is, the first quarter of the 1800s (Dirks in Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993: 280). Contrarily, one sees reliance on native informants and, in this case, indirectly ruled princely India as late as the 1880s. It remains known that after 1858 the project of knowledge-building by the British focused on the princely states and hence the role of native informants as brokers of knowledge must have been crucial (Ramusack 2004: 88). And while the British government displayed ambivalence towards extensive surveys like the Mysore Page 28 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Survey (Dirks in Breckenridge and van der Veer 1993: 282, 285, 301–3), it saw definite value in these provincial craft surveys that obviously yielded information for British industry. The native informant in the field, exhibitions, and museums also provided the required force for a full-grown Baroda court.

(p.224) Part II: Returning to the Palace, the Prince, and His Ideas 4.6 Shared Objectives: the Palace, the Court, and the Museum

The ‘Baroda court’ emerged as an egalitarian display of art and crafts that also mirrored Sayajirao’s private collecting practice as laid out in the Lakshmi Vilas Palace. To put it differently, the Baroda court resembled the entrance hall, the Durbar Hall, and interior chambers of the Lakshmi Vilas. A description of the palace’s interior-decor scheme is useful to underscore this link.85 The facade of stained-glass mosaic produced at a workshop in Murano, Italy, sets the tone for the eclecticism of the Durbar Hall. It depicts an Indian royal wedding in heavy academic-style conventions. Augusto Felici’s marble muses grace the western side of the Durbar Hall and intersperse with locally produced wooden screens set in balconies. The eastern wall bears stained-glass windows produced in Arthur J. Dix’s workshops in London (The Building News cited in London in Maholay-Jaradi 2015). Fanindranath Bose and Augusto Felici’s bronze sculptures of indigenous subjects have enjoyed rotation as learnt from photographs of different periods. Ravi Varma’s mythological paintings adorn the walls of the Durbar Hall. The mouldings of the palace come from the State Furniture Works (Baroda Administration Report 1920–21: 260). Several portrait busts are the works of Indian sculptors such as M.K. Kolhatkar who practised at the Kalabhavan (Sheikh 1997: 50). Beyond the Durbar Hall, the interior chambers of the palace also repeat this democratic aesthetic. We have seen the manufacture of mouldings, screens, chests, and furniture for the palace interiors at the State Furniture Works (Baroda Administration Report 1920–21: 260). The photographs of the Lakshmi Vilas’s dressing rooms, boudoirs, and sitting rooms show several pieces such as partition screens and wooden furniture of a local provenance. Likewise, furniture pieces such as beds, wardrobes, verandah seats, and knickknacks were also purchased in Europe through advisors such as F.A. Fillion.86 Sayajirao also decided the placement and usage of crafts for the interior spaces. Correspondence associated with the Poona Agricultural Exhibition of 1880 records: ‘His Excellency thinks that the workbox may be useful to Her Highness Junior Maharani Saheb, ivory things may be liked as toys by Her Highness Tarabai Saheb and Ahmedabad vase (may be used) for Maharaja’s room.’87 (p. 225) (p.226) (p.227)

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects

Figure 4.8 Untitled room, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

Figure 4.9 Sitting Room, First Floor, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects This same range of indigenized academic paintings, vernacular architecture, crafts, and the Kalabhavan products characterized the Baroda court, as learnt from the inventories examined thus far. Exhibition design also allowed ample scope to display natural resources and raw materials such as the green Baroda marble. Much like its usage in the Lakshmi Vilas, the green marble, it was proposed, should pave the central portion of the floor where the Baroda exhibits would be displayed for the Paris Exposition of 1900; as a result, marble-slab floorings were

Figure 4.10 Bedroom, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

included in the loans’ inventory.88 A singular space’s easy accumulation of diverse genres, that ranged from indigenized academic paintings to the Ahmedabad vase, could be afforded by a compatible display mechanism that was also shared by the domain of exhibitions. The previous chapter points to ‘period rooms’ in exhibitions that focused on thematic displays, much like royal palaces of colonial India. It is known that period rooms appeared in the context of furnishing emporia much before

Figure 4.11 Lakshmi Vilas Palace, c. 1904. Collection: Central Library, Mandvi, Baroda.

Photograph: Manish Chauhan. museums displayed these.89 As a matter of fact, luxury goods’ firms and furnishing emporia shared a close association with royal residential projects, and hence architects and designers may have been guided by similar display concepts. Luxury goods’ firms made special bids for royal residential projects;90 in turn, architects and designers working on royal projects also took charge of luxury goods’ purchase Page 31 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects as seen in the case of F.A. Fillion. While it resides outside the scope of this book to establish the precise evolution of the period room in princely undertakings such as the Lakshmi Vilas or furnishing emporia, the idea is to underline the ubiquity of the period room in these two contexts and its increasing usage at exhibitions. One does not claim that the exhibition courts, likened to period rooms, evolved from the royal residential projects, but the similarity of their display mechanisms afforded an easy sharing of their contents. Furthermore, some unique strengths of the period room served the formulation of provincial categories. Period rooms in nineteenth century European history museums employed two display modes: one was the distribution of objects according to centuries and the other favoured an eclectic assemblage of objects around a cluster of relics from the same period (Guha-Thakurta 2004: 72). The former ‘century mode’ engendered the trope of metonymy whereby the displayed objects as a (p.228) ‘part’ were associated to its ‘whole’ through the common link of contiguity and juxtaposition. The latter ‘thematic mode’ engendered the trope of synecdoche to create an organic whole whereby each object was linked with the other or the whole ‘to create an integrative notion of a homogenous historical period’ (Guha-Thakurta 2004: 72–3). The thematic mode encouraged eclecticism as new objects and genres could be affiliated with each other, though no one object could stand in for the whole. The various exhibition loans’ inventories analysed thus far reflect immense diversity and yet manage a consistent affiliation with the court and category of Baroda. This affiliation could be sustained by what is conceptualized as the ‘integrative notion’ of the thematic mode (Guha-Thakurta 2004: 72). This integration of diverse genres also guided the decor and furnishing of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, discussed as the ‘lifestyle context’ in the first two chapters. The integrative notion found an echo in the Baroda court as well as the subsequent collections for the Baroda Museum and the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. Also, the ‘period room’ and its ‘integrative notion’ did not stem from display mechanisms alone. Distinct ideas of egalitarianism and cosmopolitanism undergirded this concurrence of diverse genres that was far from random eclecticism. The thematic mode of the period room is ‘to create an integrative notion of a homogenous historical period’ (Guha-Thakurta 2004: 72). Quite contrarily, in Sayajirao’s collecting practice in the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, objects and artworks from different time periods often clustered together; these ranged from the Renaissance to the contemporary. Even though the objects come from diverse historical periods and places, they represent ideas conceived in the ‘current time period’ to formulate a specific project, that is, an inclusive nationalism. That definition of a collection wherein ideas actively associate with material objects is reinforced here (Durost 1932: 10). The primacy of the idea over the inherent value of the objects makes a conceptual contribution to how the period room and its integrative notion may be applied and perceived alternatively. That is to say, instead of understanding the period room as comprising a pivotal relic from a Page 32 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects single homogenous time period around which other objects assemble, it could contain objects from different time periods, as in the case of the Lakshmi Vilas, while still representing ideas from (p.229) a single time frame. To elucidate further, these ideas (associated with alternative modernity, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism—all conceived within Sayajirao’s tenure) allowed the diverse objects to stand in a relation with each other and qualify the whole as a collection. The homogeneity of the time frame may be translated as the consistency of Sayajirao’s ideas; by virtue of this common pool of ideas that governed his collection, any object could become the central relic around which other objects could assemble meaningfully. This brings us back to the beginning of Chapter 1, that is, the palaces of princely India, the Lakshmi Vilas in this case. Giles Tillotson (1989: 54, 74–5) argues convincingly that this Indo-Saracenic building is no more than a visual pastiche, called variously as ‘medley’, ‘mixture’, and even ‘scrapbook of Indian forms’ in a Western structure. Even though from the disciplinary position of architectural history the palace may have indeed been no more than a pastiche, one suggested that there was a distinct set of ideas, even if in their formative and imperfect stages, that guided this intended convergence of vernacular and European elements. These ideas—the articulation of colonial modernity to its localization, eventual conception of an alternative modernity, and the latter’s participation in a European modern—are discussed throughout this book in a continuum: first introduced in Chapter 1 and then demonstrated through particular art commissions with artists such as Ravi Varma in Chapter 2 and the Kalabhavan and design experiments in Chapter 3. Finally, this chapter brings the products of these experiments in the common space of the Baroda court. Thus now the Baroda court directly inter-calibrates with the sites of traditional industries, modernized contexts of production such as polytechnics–workshops, and the royal palace, and derives value from this ‘integrated affiliation’ and the many ideas that undergird the aforementioned sites: ideas of tradition and handiwork, artisanal autonomy, superiority of Indian design and aesthetics, scientific and modern systems of production, and prestige consumption. Clearly then, the Baroda court that is an extension of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace in its architecture and decor scheme is more than a superficial medley of diverse arts and crafts. Instead, the aforementioned ideas collectively lend the quality of a nationally representative, secular, and modern category to the Baroda paradigm. (p.230) In a continued discussion of the aforementioned point, I expand on how Baroda’s museum collections, too, are an extension of the entire range of objects and ideas from the maharaja’s private collecting practice, exhibition loans, the Kalabhavan products, and the Baroda crafts. The Khangi Javerkhana’s transfer of objects to the Baroda Museum is recorded in the Baroda Administration Report (Dutt 1907: 171). Paintings by artists such as Samuel Rahamin and Ravi Varma also find a place in the museum. Valentine Prinsep’s 1879 portrait of Page 33 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Sayajirao is displayed here. A marble bust of Sayajirao’s brother, Sampatrao Gaekwad, produced in Florence is kept in the museum. Significant pieces that may come from loans’ inventories such as a ‘Silver Model of His Highness’s Savari Elephant for Dussehra Procession, with a Gilt Howdah’ is on display at the museum currently. Another ivory model of the elephant with howdah, possibly a larger version of Neelakandan Asari’s paperweight, is also displayed here. Portrait plaques in brass and portrait busts in marble produced by native sculptors from the Kalabhavan are part of this collection. Contributions by the Kalabhavan such as woodwork, metal work, and fabrics donated to the art section of the museum also find documentation in the reports (Dutt 1907: 171). Among some noticeable crafts are a chessboard table of Sankheda gold lacquerwork and a Billimora sandalwood box panelled with ivory plaques depicting Durga fighting the demons. Their expensive materials and elaborate design suggest that these may have been specially commissioned works intended for royal consumption. They remind us of the experimental scope offered to traditional artisans such as Asari. Similarly, in 1961 miscellaneous objects from Baroda’s royal palaces were loaned to the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum (Codell 2003: 133). Its collection is ‘considered the most valuable according to the market indexes contemporary with the 1961 Fatesingh museum catalogue compiled by Hermann Goetz and Annemarie Goetz’ (Goetz and Goetz cited in Codell 2003: 133). Its galleries simulate the lifestyle context of the interior chambers of the palace through its chief prestige components: period furniture, significant decor pieces and paintings by Ravi Varma, and bronze sculptures by Augusto Felici and Fanindranath Bose. Links between the palace and museum can be read visually in photographs: once seen in the main portico of the Lakshmi Vilas Palace, the Cheetah Tamer and the Tanjore Dancing Girl have since moved to the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. (p.231)

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects

Figure 4.12 Sandalwood box panelled with ivory plaques (Durga fighting the demons) and mosaic by an unknown artist from Billimora. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums. Accession number: A.15.1. Photograph: Manish Chauhan.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects (p.232) 4.7 Royal Collection Shapes National Arts and Crafts

This chapter positions the royal collecting practice at the Lakshmi Vilas Palace in the evolution of the Baroda court and Baroda museums. It thus makes a revisionist contribution to the development of collections. Surveys, explorations, exhibitions, and catalogues are seen as the basis of private and public antiquarian, archaeological, and museum collections (p.233) in colonial India (Cohn 1996: x, 9– 10, 101–2). The exhibition and catalogue are also viewed as resource guides for collectors (Breckenridge 1989: 205–6, 211–13). However, this chapter reverses the relationship between collecting and surveys to demonstrate that the royal collection and the state administrative apparatus

Figure 4.13 Sampatrao Gaekwad sculpted in marble by an unknown artist

become the basis for provincial surveys and museums; that is,

in Florence. Courtesy of the Department of Museums, Museum & Picture Gallery, Baroda. Not to be reproduced without prior permission of the Director of Museums.

the royal collecting practice acts as a resource and support system for investigative Accession number: CH 166. modalities that identify typical crafts. These crafts in turn Photograph: Manish Chauhan. culminate in exhibition displays and documentation and later the provincial court, provincial category, and the provincial museum. Elsewhere, the genealogy of the museum in India is traced back to Western orientalist scholarship and a conspicuous absence of royal collections is highlighted (GuhaThakurta 2004: 46). On the contrary, the provincial museum, as exemplified in the case of Baroda, owes its pedigree to the royal collection, its ideas, and associated practices. Thus one notes that the formulation of a Baroda category of arts and crafts and Baroda’s museums was made possible with the nucleus of Sayajirao’s private collecting practice, its ideas, and resources. Without Sayajirao and the Baroda durbar’s role as lending agency, this paradigm would Page 36 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects not have enjoyed display and documentation on the international exhibition circuit. In the end, Baroda’s museum holdings that enjoyed a shared royal, industrial, and traditional pedigree in terms of materials and ideas found a place in the national project. The introduction to this book states that while it may be difficult to pinpoint the final qualification of every Baroda genre as a national art, each chapter aims to at least position these genres and the Baroda collective in the ‘formulation of a national project’. This also means that the final recognition of individual genres and the aggregate Baroda category may occur in indirect ways. One of these is the recognition of the Baroda crafts as a ‘national’ collection through its state repositories such as the Baroda Museum. The Indian Museum in Calcutta finally failed to secure a representative national craft collection.91 In this scenario, the idea of the national was sought in the local. ‘Overall the museums establishment in the 1940s seemed steeped in the primacy of local collections. The national was etched primarily in the countrywide elaboration of sites and holdings and in the placement of each unit within the established frame of a composite heritage and an integrated management’ (Guha-Thakurta 2004: 200). Thus native agency filled the gaps created by (p.234) the establishment’s failures and shortfalls. A reading of the national may also be seen in Baroda State’s numerous craft surveys that contributed to the knowledge-building of nationwide crafts. The local officials’ sharing of information with exhibition commissioners led to a detailed documentation of this crafts’ knowledge in exhibition catalogues and journals. And Baroda’s participation in the Congress-led industrial exhibitions was also a step towards periodical stocktaking of the Indian economy, its crafts, and manufactures. Thus, ultimately, the local and provincial projects exemplified in the case of Baroda finely dovetail into the making of a larger national collection. The introduction to this book cited examples of practitioners and genres such as Raja Ravi Varma, Anju Dodiya, Sankheda lacquerware, and Patan patolas. They remind us that Baroda and the Lakshmi Vilas are entrenched in the national art scene in various roles: as a lending agency, a city known for its craft manufactures, and a royal palace and exhibition venue. One’s search for an alternative agency to link these genres ends with Sayajirao’s loans’ inventory, which in turn underlines his roles as royal collector, head of state, and a significant lender. Varma and the Sankheda and Patan genres were part of Sayajirao’s loans’ inventory and the eclectic display of the Lakshmi Vilas and the Baroda court. This eclecticism informs Dodiya’s art, and her inclusion in the Lakshmi Vilas also strengthens the integrative notion of the palace’s period room-style eclecticism. Thus the royal collector’s loans’ inventory for colonial exhibitions continues to inform the postcolonial context of national arts and crafts. These inventories emerged as a foundational alternative modality to institutionalize the colony’s Page 37 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects knowledge of art and crafts. The local exhibition committee’s sourcing, classification, and representation of local artisans, their genres, style, technique, and design together produced a resource guide for exhibitions and catalogues. Baroda’s administration and resource personnel engaged with the maharaja’s private collecting practice and also became primary information brokers for exhibition commissioners, catalogue writers, other exhibition specialists, and also for the colonial establishment. As noted in Chapter 2, even though private collecting was informed by institutionalized and colonial contexts of exhibitions and catalogues, it informed the institutionalization of the establishment-led art– craft (p.235) knowledge through the same domains. This explains the native loans’ inventory’s simultaneous contributions to the local, national, colonial, and global spaces. Moreover, it reminds us that private collecting that had a stake in the preparation of loans’ inventories did not remain confined to the private chambers of the palace and was extended to a national project. Considering that there was no dedicated department to look into matters related to handicrafts in Baroda State, and that it was part of the Revenue Department, and Baroda State’s expenditure on handicrafts economy was negligible,92 Sayajirao’s private collecting practice becomes even more significant in light of their promotion through exhibitions. This establishes the primacy of native agency, private collecting practice, and its loans in the domain of exhibitions–catalogues– museums. Their resultant knowledge continues to qualify select ‘Baroda’ genres and artists as ‘national’ arts, crafts, and practitioners.

Notes:

(1.) NAI: Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883–1884’: Cir. No. 1 Ex., Extract from the Proceedings of the Government of India, in the Revenue and Agricultural Department, dated Calcutta, 3 January 1884, T.W. Holderness, Off. Secretary to the Government of India, p. 1. (2.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Memo 2568; From: T. Madhavarao, Dewan’s Cutchery, Baroda, 18 July 1877.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects (3.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 4: ‘Exhibitions: Simla Fine Arts Exhibition (1879–1895)’: Memo with Letter 651; From: T. Madhava Row, Baroda, 2 September 1879; To: Major Anderson. (4.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 4: Memo titled ‘Lace Sent for Simla Fine Arts Exhibition’, signed by Manager, 29 January 1880. GSA/SCV/ HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 4: ‘Bill of Gokaldas Atmaram for Gold and Silver Border Supplied by him’, signed by Manager, 28 July 1880. (5.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 4: ‘Bill of Gokaldas Atmaram for Gold and Silver Border Supplied by him’, signed by Manager, 28 July 1880. (6.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 4: Memo, 29 January 1880, with Note by Dewan T. Madhava Row, 31 January 1880. (7.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 127, File 15: ‘Correspondence with Merchants: Correspondence with Chamber of Commerce, Bombay’: Letter 326; From: Sir T. Madava Row, Dewan’s Cutchery, Baroda, 18 July 1880; To: Secretary Chamber of Commerce, Bombay. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 127, File 15: Letter from: J. Gordon, Secretary, Chamber of Commerce, Bombay, 4 September 1880; To: Sir T. Madava Row. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 127, File 15: Letter from: Chamber of Commerce, Bombay, 9 April 1881; To: Sir T. Madava Row. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 99, Daftar 127, File 15: Letter 243; From: Sir Charles Forbes & Co. Bombay/London, 11 March 1881; To: Sir T. Madava Row. (8.) It is explained that naval, military, and court tailors use gold lace, but since their designs are custom-made and manufactured on the spot, it is difficult to employ the Baroda lace for their purposes. (9.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Annexture of List of Objects Attached to Letter 4512; From: Kazi Shabudin Dewan, Dewan’s Cutchery, Baroda, 17 April 1883; To: The Joint Secretaries, Poona Exhibition Committee, Poona. (10.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 233, Daftar 345, File 2. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 85, Daftar 472, File 7. (11.) This chapter uses the term ‘provincial’ (interchangeable for the ‘local’). The Museums and Exhibitions Resolution, exhibition journals, and post-exhibition reports use the term ‘local’ and ‘provincial’ interchangeably for districts, provinces, and states in the context of surveys, exhibition courts, and museums. NAI: Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883– 1884’: Cir. No. 1 Ex. (1884), pp. 1–4. Gupte (1886). GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Circular No. 15/5-8 Ex. Extract of the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition Report; From: Proceedings of the Government of India,

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Revenue and Agricultural Department, 17 February 1888, Museums and Exhibitions, E.C. Buck, Secretary to the Government of India. Tapati Guha-Thakurta also uses the terms ‘provincial’ and ‘local’ in these contexts. Additionally, she employs the term ‘regional’ to explain surveys and indigenous scholarship in the context of Bengal. In keeping with the terms used in the primary source material, I use ‘local’ and ‘provincial’ except in cases where I quote the term ‘regional’ from Guha-Thakurta (2004). Thus in this chapter, ‘local’ is used to represent district-based genres such as Sankheda lacquerware, Patan patola, and so on. It is also used to designate the aggregate ‘Baroda’category. Thus for my purposes of discussion on Baroda, I use ‘local’ unless quoting from the aforementioned or any other sources. (12.) NAI: Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883–1884’, Cir. No. 1 Ex., 1884, p. 1. (13.) NAI: Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883–1884’, Cir. No. 1 Ex., 1884, p. 2. (14.) NAI: Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883–1884’, Cir. No. 1, 1884, p. 3. In fact, this fluid exchange of design between genres and provincial styles, especially underlined in the final 1884 resolution, underscores my argument from the previous chapter, that on the one hand, while vernacular, provincial designs were identified and documented as being typical, on the other, new design experiments led to exchange and a burgeoning pool of generic Indian design. (15.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Circular No. 15/5-8 Ex., Extract of the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition Report. (16.) From this point, I extend the category of crafts to include manufactures since the discussion engages with industrial processes of production. Extract from the 1888 proceedings also recognize the inclusion of industrial processes in the production of handicrafts. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Circular No. 15/5-8 Ex., Extract of the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition Report. (17.) NAI: Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883–1884’, circular no. 1 Ex., 1884; circular no. 78 Ex., 1883. (18.) For a similar understanding of a changing art-and-craft field and an astute handling of the myth of a timeless India, see Asher and Metcalf (1994). (19.) This reading of convergence aligns with Guha-Thakurta’s (2004: xviii–xix, 115–17, 121–4) illumination of native agency in the shared space of regional

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects initiatives and the colonial establishment in the development of art history and archaeology and their institutional projects such as museums. (20.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter from: Francis Knollys, Private Secretary, Marlborough House, Pall Mall, 25 July 1884; To: Sir (His Highness, the Maharajah of Baroda). NAI: Foreign Department, File 107: Internal, Part A, July 1885: Letter from: Major General J. Watson, V.C, C.B., Agent to the Governor General at Baroda to H.M. Durand C.S.I., Secretary to the Government of India, Foreign Department, 23 June, 1885. NAI: Foreign Department, File 107: Internal, Part A, July 1885: Letter from: Under Secretary, 29 June. (21.) NAI: File 107: Letter from: Major General J. Watson, V.C, C.B., Agent to the Governor General at Baroda. (22.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter 610; From: Dewan Kazi Shahabudin, Huzur Cutchery, 31 August 1885; To: Captain J.H. Sadler. (23.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter 34; From: Captain J. Hayes Sadler, President of the Exhibition Committee, 2 April 1886; To: Major. T.H. Jackson, Officiating Agent Governor General Baroda; GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter 4938; From: Kazi Shahabudin, 4 April 1885; To: Captain J.H. Sadler. (24.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter 34. (25.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Inventory. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: Precis Report of Three Exhibitions (1886, 1893, & 1900) attached to Letter 5324; From: Chief Engineer of Baroda State (Name Illegible), Huzur P.W. Department, Baroda, 10 February 1903; To: St. Louis World’s Fair, 1904. (26.) These categories are drawn out as the ‘author’s emphasis’ to draw attention to objects and artworks from diverse segments: handicrafts, manufactures, royal possessions, and so on. In the original inventory, objects appear in a random order. (27.) NAI: File 107: Letter from: Major General J. Watson, 23 June 1885; Letter from Under Secretary, 29 June 1885. ‘The Baroda Committee members for the 1886 Exhibition were: Captain Hayes Sadler, President of the Exhibition Commt & Asst Agent to the Governor General; Major F.H. Jackson; Rao Bahadur Lakshman Jagannath; Rao Bahadur J.S. Gadgil; T.S. Tait; Playford Reynolds; Abbas Tyabji; Rao Bahadur Raoji Vithal; Rao Saheb Har Govindas Dwarkadas; Ambalal Sakarlal Desai; Mr Dinshah Ardeshir Taleyarkhan (Municipal Commissioner), Hon Secretary to The Committee.’ The constitution of the committee shows inclusion of British officials, officials from the Huzur Office, Page 41 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects engineers who could facilitate production of items such as the Baroda Screen, and other eminent men who could be potential lenders for the display. (28.) NAI: File 107: Letter from: Major General J. Watson, 23 June 1885; Letter from Under Secretary, 29 June 1885. (29.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter 34. (30.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter No. 12 of 1885; From: Captain J. Hayes Sadler, President, Baroda Committee, Indo-Colonial Exhibition, 29 August 1885; To: Khan Bahadur Esq CIE, Minister of the Baroda State. (31.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Circular No. 92 Ex./IX-2; From: E.C. Buck, Secretary to the Government of India, Revenue and Agriculture Dept./Museums & Exhibitions, Simla, 26 June 1885; To: Gaekwar of Baroda. (32.) Shet Haribhakti was a prominent banker and member of the mercantile community of Baroda State (Elliot 1883: 125). (33.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter from: Huzur Cutchery, dates illegible, 1885, Kazi Shahabudin; To: illegible (though it can be conjectured that it must be Captain Hayes Sadler, the president of the Baroda Committee for the 1886 exhibition). (34.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: List of Articles to be Presented to the Museum at Chicago in Conformity with Huẓoor Order, 23 April 1892, out of the Exhibits Sent to the Chicago Exhibition 1893. (35.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: Precis Report of Three Exhibitions (1886, 1893, & 1900). (36.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Chicago Exposition Business; From: S.J. Tellery & Co., Delhi, 27 July 1892; To: The Agent, Governor General, Baroda. (37.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter from: S.J. Tellery & Co. Delhi, 11 August 1892; To: Dewan, Baroda State, Baroda. (38.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter from: name illegible, Huzur Cutchery’s Office. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 17; From: Sudharai Kamdar’s Office, Baroda, 1 June 1893. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: ‘Letter 597; From: H.E. Office, 25 August 1892. This backup list is in turn forwarded to the municipal department for necessary action.

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects (39.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter from: Huzur Kutchery, Baroda, 8 October 1892; To: S.J. Tellery & Co. (40.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Chicago Exposition Business; From: S.J. Tellery & Co., 30 September 1892; To: The Dewan of Baroda State. (41.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter dated 30 September 1892. (42.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Inventory. (43.) Lavish publications on archaeological sites became the norm. Bhopal funded publications on Sanchi and Hyderabad supported Ajanta and Ellora (Ramusack 2004: 146–7). (44.) ‘Nationalities’ in this case means different regional types of India. (45.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 4: Memo Attached to Letter No: 6140; To: Major Anderson; From T. Madhava Row, Baroda, 15 July 1879. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 4: Memo with Letter 651; From: T. Madhava Row, Baroda, 2 September 1879; To: Major Anderson. (46.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, Files 1 and 4: Poona Museum Committee: Letter 5244; From: Dewan’s office, Baroda, 29 April 1880; To: The Secretary, Poona Exhibition. (47.) See Appendix III for details. (48.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: List of Prizes for Poona Fine Arts Exhibition, 1878. (49.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Prospectus of the Madras Fine Arts Society Exhibition, 1881–2. (50.) Naidu’s participation at the Madras exhibition of 1881–2 remains unverified. (51.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Prospectus of the Madras Fine Arts Society Exhibition, 1881–2. (52.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Prospectus of the Seventeenth Annual Exhibition of the Western India Fine Arts Society, 1890, p. 2. (53.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Prospectus of the Nineteenth Annual Exhibition of the Western India Fine Arts Society, 1892, p. 2. (54.) Both Hoffenberg (2001: xiv, 2–3, 18, 20, 22–3) and Breckenridge (1989: 202) argue for the making of imperial and national identities in exhibition Page 43 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects spaces. For an opposite perspective, that is, exhibitions as spaces to promote the identity of the empire, see Greenhalgh (1991). (55.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Prospectus: Poona Exhibition of Native Arts and Manufactures, 1888, p. 1. (56.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: Letter 100; From: Manibhai J., Glenview, Ootacamund, 22 August 1902; To: Rao Bahadur R.V. Dhamnasker, Minister, Baroda. (57.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: Letter 100. (58.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: Letter 100; Instructions by R.V. Dhamnasker, 31 August 1902. (59.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: Letter 1622; From: R.V. Dhamnasker, Dewan, Huzur Cutchery, Baroda, 13 September 1902; To: Honorary Secretaries, Indian Industrial Exhibition, Jesinghbhai’s Vadi, Ahmedabad. (60.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: Letter 100; Instructions by R.V. Dhamnasker, 31 August 1902. (61.) For a discussion of the misnomer of purity granted to cultures, see Bhabha (1994: 2). (62.) NAI: Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883–1884’: Draft Scheme for the Promotion of Industrial Art in India as finally revised in accordance with the Proceedings of the Art Committee, held in Calcutta on 11 December 1883, 14 December 1883, 18 December 1883, and 22 December 1883. (63.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 9: Letter 6011; From: Principal, Kalabhavan, Baroda, 30 July 1908; To: The Manager, Huzur English Office, Baroda. (64.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 9: Letter 6011. (65.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: Precis Report of Three Exhibitions (1886, 1893, & 1900). (66.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 3: Letter 1519; From: Narottam Morarjee Gokaldas, Secretary to Executive Committee of Old Bombay, 20 October 1911. (67.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 12: ‘Exhibitions: The British Empire Exhibition, London (1924)’: Indian Section: Handbook of the Baroda

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects Court; Issued by the Local Committee in Baroda Appointed by His Highness the Gaekwad’s Government, p. 31. (68.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 12: The British Empire Exhibition, London, 1924, p. 31. (69.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 16, Daftar 23, File 6: Letter 532; Memo of 13 April 1897. (70.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Letter 1016; From: John Griffiths, the Superintendent, Sir. J.J. School of Art, Bombay, 30 August 1883; To: The Agent to H.E. the Viceroy, Baroda. (71.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Inventory. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: Precis Report of Three Exhibitions (1886, 1893, & 1900) Attached to Letter 5324. (72.) See Appendix IV for details. (73.) NAI: Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883–1884’. Cir. No. 1 Ex., 1884, pp. 3–4. (74.) NAI: Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883–1884’: Cir. No. 1 Ex., 1884, p. 4. For further discussion on the JIAI and its role in the documentation of crafts and design, see Dewan’s essay in Codell (2003). (75.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Report by Mr J.R. Royle, pp. 2, 6. (76.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: Letter 2659; From: B.A. Gupte, Official Delegate for the Government of Bombay, South Kensington, 22 October 1886; To: Raobahadur Lakshman Jagannath, Minister to H.H. the Gaekwar. (77.) ‘Parsis’—that is, the Zoroastrians settled in India—incorrectly spelled as ‘Paris’. (78.) Error in original source. (79.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter from: S.J. Tellery & Co. Delhi, 11 August 1892; To: Dewan, Baroda State, Baroda. (80.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 17; From: Sudharai Kamdar’s Office, Baroda, 1 June 1893. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 597; From: H.E. Office, 25 August 1892; This list of models is

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects jotted between the two letters and in turn forwarded to the municipal department for necessary action. (81.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Inventory. (82.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 502 of 1888; From: Rao Saheb Mahadeo Ballal Namjoshi, Honorary Secretary, Exhibition Committee, Poona, 9 August 1888; To: Dewan Bahadur Lakshmanrao Jagannath, Baroda. (83.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: Letter 502. (84.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Chicago Exposition Business; From: S.J. Tellery & Co., Delhi, 27 July 1892; To: The Agent, Governor General, Baroda. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Letter 6173; From: Captain (name illegible), Assistant to the Agent to the Governor General at Baroda, 8 August 1883; To: The Minister of the Baroda State. (85.) This scheme witnessed alterations from time to time, but a general description of its highlights is given here. (86.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 17, Daftar 29, File 17: Five memos with letter; From: F.A. Fillion, Paris, 13 June 1892; To: V.V. Samarth. (87.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: Memo 1417; From: N.P. Pillay, Dewan’s Office Baroda, 18 October 1880. (88.) GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: Letter 741; From: Huzur Cutchery, Baroda, 20 April 1899; To: Lieut. Col. N.E. Martelli; Precis Report of Three Exhibitions (1886, 1893, & 1900). (89.) To understand the elaborate display of department stores in Europe, see Jaffer (2006: 23). (90.) F.C. Osler made a bid to produce chandeliers for the Gaekwad’s wedding in 1879. See GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 59, Daftar 100, File 1: ‘Applications for Patronage (1875–1878)’: Letter from: Mr. Elworthy, 26 August 1878; To: Madava Row. (91.) Here it is important to recall the failed museum projects within the colonial establishment which inform us that museums may not necessarily be viewed within a very strict knowledge–power dynamic (Singh in Sinha 2009). (92.) M.H Shah (1942: 179) tracks the state expenditure on commerce and industries from 1881 to 1941 and notes a rise of 2.96 per cent in expenditure on handicrafts from a total hike of 82 per cent in state expenditure on commerce and industries. Page 46 of 47

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Inventorying Ideas and Objects

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Conclusion

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

Conclusion Locating Cosmopolitanism, Modernity, and Nationalism Priya Maholay-Jaradi

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.003.0005

Abstract and Keywords This critical summary conclusively expands the careers of modernity, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism outside of Western geographies and their conventional disciplinary leanings. Maharaja Sayajirao’s collecting practice and institutional patronage together become an interstice that connects the cultural, political, and economic aspirations of princely Baroda, colonial India, and EuroAmerica. Contextual readings of Baroda’s projects display a pan-Indian and global reference frame in the assemblage of ideas, materials, practitioners, aesthetic and technological inputs, many of which are drawn from incompatible domains of the East and the West, modernization, capital and tradition, colonial and national, art and craft, and the private and public realms. Over time, this interstitial zone is shaped variously by derivation, hybridization, and rearticulation of diverse inputs that simultaneously respond to local, modern, and global standards. Thus, different standards collapse across oblique domains and come together in new, compatible, and cosmopolitan relationships. Together they represent a site of cultural nationalism; a global, modern art; and a provenance of contemporary relevance. Keywords:   context/contextual, polycentric, societal modernization, cultural modernity, pan-Indian, assimilative, oblique, interstice, nationalism

Revisiting the central research statement laid out in the Introduction, one can say that Sayajirao’s collecting practice is revealed as a fine expression of cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and alternative modernity throughout this book. Page 1 of 10

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Conclusion Given its present shape, this book employs an art-historical discourse to make a ‘critical intervention’ (to borrow Geeta Kapur’s [2000: xiii] description of her own work on modernism) on several universal canons. It adds to the multiplicity of projects on modernities, cosmopolitanisms, and nationalisms and their empirical expressions, while also recognizing their interconnectedness and reciprocal relationships.

Alternative Modernity The identification of Baroda as a ‘centre’ of forward-thinking modernism under Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III in colonial India and its positive reception globally, challenges the monolithic narrative of modernism. More importantly, analyses of Baroda’s art and craft projects, all of which rely on the archival encounter as opposed to the final artwork, enjoy a deep contextual analysis;1 these context-driven readings point to the production of highly original and localized art genres and systems of production as seen in Ravi Varma’s mythological oil paintings and the Kalabhavan’s inclusion of local artisans and design-oriented products. These experiments not only manage to hold their own but also reappraise and critique (p.245) the predominant Western frames of modernism. Thus Baroda’s cultural modernity is not distant or one inserted in a predominantly Western framework. Its function of reinscribing European systems and practices qualifies it as an alternative modernity that is in active dialogue with its European counterpart. Its contemporaneous and simultaneous character rectifies the historicist perspective of global historical time, which, according to Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000: 8), confers the status of ‘first in Europe, then elsewhere’ to modernity. The historicist consciousness—which consigns the colonized nations to the waiting room of history to await their turn and deserving moment to become civilized (Chakrabarty 2000: 8)—is revised through Sayajirao’s space of collecting and institutional patronage that at once activates several experiments in the royal palace, commercial workshops, and craft guilds to truncate what becomes a preparation time from the European perspective, and allows native artisans and artists to occupy the same space as their European counterparts. Thus Chakrabarty’s (2000: 9) interpretation of the nationalist struggle gains full force at the site of my analysis: by not being premodern, Baroda’s art–craft domain rejects the waiting room. All the same, Baroda’s artisans participate in the culture and economy of the colony as well as the metropole. Thus, adopting methodological directions set by many historians and art historians, the career of the modern (and its attendant aspects of science and capital) is expanded outside of Western geography to make it polycentric and the idea of the difference of Indian modernity is advanced and integrated into a larger European modern (Brown 2009; Kapur 2000: xiii; Mitchell 2000; Mitter 2008: 539, 543–4). A problematizing of our readings of Western modernity and a further nuancing of the different/alternative occurs as one creates a positive connect between the two domains of societal modernization and cultural modernity in Baroda State Page 2 of 10

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Conclusion (Gaonkar 2001: 1–2, 15). It appears that modernity was never quite a dilemma for Sayajirao and Baroda’s administration, but the idea of uncritical emulation of colonial models was resisted in favour of a more site-specific experiment that could strike the right balance between originality, difference, and reference. Thus societal modernization is delineated in Baroda’s story in the establishment of institutions of education, legal reform, healthcare, public works. Likewise, in the domain of the high arts, despite the absence of art schools, provisions were made for society (p.246) portraitists to learn through copies, European originals, field research, and sponsored visits to exhibitions. Extended appointments at the royal palace for Indian artists such as Tiroovengada Naidu and European artists such as Charles Giron were also equivalent to candidature at an art school. Polytechnics and workshops facilitated training, apprenticeship, and placement in industry for craftsmen. Artisans such as Keshav Mistry’s collaboration with the PWD and British engineers, too, worked as apprenticeship models. The results of these domains of societal modernization are analysed across the chapters in the actual art and craft objects they produced: oil portraits and mythological paintings by Tiroovengada Naidu and Ravi Varma; bronze and marble sculptures by Augusto Felici, Fanindranath Bose, and Shivalal Ugarchand; bespoke craft items by Neelakandan Asari; Anirudha Jeevatram’s experiments in pottery; and Keshav Mistry’ Pigeon House. These artistic responses did not rise in opposition to the routines of standardization ushered in by societal modernization. Instead, in the case of Baroda, artists and artworks were nurtured by the very institutes of societal modernization set in place by the royal collector.

Nationalism Another problematization of (European) cultural modernity lies in the reading of Baroda’s cultural projects as initiated by the state and geared towards collective and national interests unlike the cultural modernity of mid-nineteenth century that was more oriented towards the self (Gaonkar 2001: 2). The idea of national welfare shines through the maharaja’s many speeches and their themes of political and sociocultural concerns in the face of British rule and its attendant problems of British-style trade, a threatened artisanal community, lack of wealth management, and food security plans. Thus Sayajirao’s constant revisiting of swadesh-ism points to his strategies for nationwide self-reliance. The national may also be read in Baroda’s art–craft patronage that created a transnational cultural ecumene beyond its own provincial borders. With Sayajirao’s support, Ravi Varma’s pan-Indian fieldwork and its resultant assemblage of plural locations, architectural references, costumes, and sitters from different linguistic and regional groups led to the reception of his genre as a new national iconography (Chatterjee 1907: 86; Guha-Thakurta 1992: 110; Tagore’s (p.247) Chitra-o-Kavya referred to by Guha-Thakurta 1993: 54). T. Madhavarao played a crucial role in placing artists from other states at Baroda as seen in the case of the Lucknow workman who guided a pottery training programme, Travancore’s Page 3 of 10

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Conclusion Neelakandan Asari, Tiroovengada Naidu, Ravi Varma, and the unidentified mica painter. Sayajirao and his administrators placed local candidates at the Bombay Art School and sought to forge ties with the VJTI, Bombay, and the College of Science, Poona. The Lakshmi Vilas also connected with factory-style artisanal workshops across Madras, Bombay, and Kutch. The place of Baroda’s cultural modernity may also be positioned in a national paradigm due to its contributions towards documentation of nationwide crafts that culminated in provincial and regional museums. Additionally, Baroda’s regular participation in industrial exhibitions held in conjunction with the Indian National Congress may be seen as contributing to a national appraisal of India’s growing industrial profile. Lastly, the representation given to vernacular and Indian design through royal and state commissions also supported the national cause of the promotion of crafts and craft communities. Considering that Baroda’s cultural projects were articulated in the space of a private princely state as compared to directly ruled British India, nationalists laid claim to these as well as the royal person of Sayajirao who was seen as a moderate and nationalist spokesperson. Baroda’s case study expands the career of nationalism by making it polycentric, and Sayajirao and his officers emerge as arbiters of transnational practices. Considering that the maharaja’s ideas and his cultural experiments were assimilative of British India and its many communities expands the scope of Baroda’s genre of nationalism as well as its alternative modernity.

Cosmopolitanism Discussions dedicated to individual artists and craftsmen and even jointly produced works such as the Baroda Balcony and the Baroda Screen prove that a democratic aesthetic was constantly at work in Baroda’s art and craft projects. In terms of technique, materials, style, and compositional themes, the creators drew on a wide range of domains: Varma drew on history, mythology, Sanskrit and Malayalam literature, performing arts such as Kathakali and Thullal, and European media to create a new genre (p.248) of high art. Patan potters and European engineers drew design references from local buildings around Baroda to produce hybrid pieces for exhibitions; Anirudha Jeevatram drew on Jaipur’s pottery to experiment with Visnagar clay. Thus classical, contemporary, vernacular, pan-Indian, and international inputs yielded new cosmopolitan art experiments for Baroda. Even a superficial reading of Jean-François Lyotard will reveal modernity as being reductive and even violent and anti-cosmopolitan.2 Contrarily, this material is assimilative and reveals an alternative modernity through the lens of Baroda as it is a provincial yet cosmopolitan sensibility that also successfully grounds the national.3 In addition to the secular attributes of each genre, the Baroda paradigm, as a whole, also saw an equally secular inclusion of handcrafted artisanal objects, high arts, machine-produced luxury goods, royal possessions, and customized exhibition pieces. This integration of the high arts and the indigenous crafts is a rare occurrence to both contexts: that of the making of a modern nationalism as Page 4 of 10

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Conclusion well as to a colonial art-historical enquiry. Colonial India’s modern and national art movements have almost always exclusively courted either the high-art traditions or the indigenous crafts. Sayajirao’s private commissions, institutional projects, and loans examined across this book bear testimony to a tenacious inclusion of both. Thus, the fashioning of his national-art project is markedly different from the revivalist/pan-Asian Bengal School or that of the revivalist craft projects seen at the Jaipur Museum or the craft-oriented Mayo School of Art in Lahore. Generally speaking, while colonial Indian art history has made voluminous documentations of its high-art practitioners and their commissions, there is limited data on individual craftsmen’s careers and their works. As pointed out by Tim Barringer and Tom Flynn (1998: 3), ‘While representations of all kinds have been subjected to critical scrutiny within the general project of postcolonial enquiry, the broader category of functional, or non-representational three-dimensional objects (whether considered as “the applied arts”, “the decorative arts”, or less restrictively as “material culture”) has largely been ignored in the context of debates about colonialism.’ By paying equal attention to craft genres and craft producers such as Dabhoi’s copper kallas, Keshav Mistry, Hira Kishore, and Moolchand Bhookan, this book redresses the imbalance in colonial Indian art history in particular and studies on colonialism in general. The compatibility between diverse (p.249) aesthetics (in independent genres) and objects of varied pedigrees (in the Baroda paradigm) leads us to the collapse of several oblique domains in Baroda’s cosmopolitan cultural space. Across this book, Baroda’s art–craft paradigm is viewed in a continuum. This approach helps one to appreciate the many preparatory stages that yield climactic moments and the culmination of ideas: this is why a singular provenance becomes associated with stages of derivation, hybridization, localization/indigenization, and the final arrival of the alternative or independent expression (in art and craft). Viewing ideas and projects in a continuum also eases the fixities of dichotomies. For instance, this study reveals how colonial institutions (formal and informal) groomed the gaze of a national-minded collector. Likewise, the usage of European materials and techniques of oil painting did not oppose nor negate the idea of the national. Instead, the wide inclusion of European and indigenous aesthetics made a provincial category capable of doubling up as an experiment of national and international standard and repute. Promotion of the traditional crafts such as pottery and lacework, when cast in a bourgeois mould of technical training and placement in industry, collapsed capital, technology, and tradition in a common space. Polytechnics such as the Kalabhavan indigenized scientific European principles of industrialschool training. Similarly, vernacular Indian design’s promotion through the global trails of exhibitions and sales did not dilute its mark of indigenism. Instead, through the royal collector and lender, native craft and design became markers of Indian culture and simultaneously enhanced Western machine Page 5 of 10

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Conclusion produce. To add to the seeming paradoxes, several colonial and local apparatuses of surveillance and documentation, such as Baroda’s swaris or autonomous surveys, and the colonial documentation of craft resources co-opted each other to know and govern a territory. In fact, the continuity of princely India by the British raj was in itself the co-opting of a native system of governance to access territories politically and culturally. The colonial apparatuses of exhibition—their systems of classification and naming—were used to advantage by the royal lender and his exhibition officials to qualify several artists and artworks as native and often of national significance. Additionally, this collapsing and inter-calibration of concepts and geographies such as the East–West, vernacular–national– cosmopolitan, colonial–national, and tradition–capital become the defining (p.250) character of the Baroda paradigm, which is true of India and South Asia’s visual culture. Despite its distinctive traits (that served the interest of making a national identity), it was simultaneously part of ‘a global system of visual production’ (Asher in Desai 2007: 6–7). Thus, these seemingly oblique domains reinscribed and reconstituted each other; they debunk the many myths surrounding unitary figures of European capital, science, and modernity, and their arrival prior to other stories of modernization. In the meeting of many polarities, princely Baroda’s art and craft realm emerges as Homi Bhabha’s (1994: 3–4) passage that allows for free movement, interaction, negotiation, and translation of different sites, their ideas, and practices. It becomes that interstice, that liminal space or political terrain between directly ruled British India and the indirectly ruled princely state that is not governed by the categories of high and low art as formulated by European art education in India. It is not pressured by the binary divisions between the European and native artists as coined by exhibition apparatuses, or the space of local art production and global exhibitions and markets. Instead, the collector creates a space that marks effective dialoguing and a flow of materials, techniques, and even practitioners from a wide spectrum into this interstitial zone to create new experiments that rely on the idea of difference. Royal commissions may be read as private or singular, which are then extended to the interest of Baroda’s institutions. In a parallel reading, princely Baroda’s projects may be read as private and local, which are then pegged into a larger national interest, as in Bhabha’s (1994: 2, 5) model. This reminds us of the book’s thrust on Sayajirao’s dual role as royal collector and statesman that facilitates links between the private and institutional domains of art patronage.

Collecting Sayajirao’s case study contributes a new paradigm to international studies on collecting. It broadens the parameters to qualify a new kind of practice as collecting: one that is different from a majority of collecting patterns and projects by being experimental, by extending its application beyond the self or collector, and by continuing to remain relevant even today. As pointed out by Page 6 of 10

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Conclusion Susan Stewart (2003: xii) and Jean Baudrillard (Baudrillard in Elsner and Cardinal 1994: 16, 24), in the Western tradition, collecting (p.251) is primarily seen as a way of reliving past experiences, replicating a world order, or being oriented towards the self. Baudrillard questions, ‘Can the [objects] ever be fashioned into a discourse oriented otherwise than toward oneself?’ (Baudrillard in Elsner and Cardinal 1994: 16, 24). This book has demonstrated that Sayajirao’s private collecting practice (much like Baroda’s cultural modernity) was extended to causes beyond the self through a systematic extension of ideas and commissions from the royal chambers to institutional projects. The contemporary relevance of Sayajirao and Baroda’s case study, which inaugurated the book, reasserts why this particular collecting practice is worthy as the basis of this enquiry into the making of a new national art. The preoccupation with the search for India’s national and modern arts and crafts continues even today in the realms of art history, curatorial practice, or pure commerce and merchandising. Hence, this collecting practice that closely positioned itself with defining a modern national art remains relevant. Various agencies in the postcolonial context look towards Baroda, especially the works of Ravi Varma and Baroda/Gujarat’s crafts in their search for representative national genres. Art-historical scholarship and art and curatorial practices recognize Varma as the point of departure in the fashioning of India’s modern art. This direct or indirect appraisal of the Baroda category establishes its qualification as representative of the national. Clearly then, Sayajirao’s collecting practice has a bearing on contemporary arts and scholarship and is not a thing of the past. This point about the contemporary presence of collections is pointed and proven by John Elsner and Roger Cardinal’s study that admittedly views collecting as ‘one that not only has its less than obvious material history, but is also a continuing presence …’ (Elsner and Cardinal 1994: 5–6). ‘If collecting is meaningful, it is because it shuns closure and the security of received evaluations and instead opens its eyes to existence—the world around us, both cultural and natural, in all its unpredictability and contingent complexity’ (Elsner and Cardinal 1994: 5–6). The authors admit to have found stories of less perfect collections as more enlightening, as opposed to the more famous collections of collectors such as the Fricks and Gettys (Elsner and Cardinal 1994: 6). In a similar vein, Sayajirao’s collecting, sometimes perceived as ‘inchoate’ (Codell 2003: 132), was actually governed and guided by refined ideas (p.252) of consumption and display. His collecting practice shunned the closure and the security of established (aesthetic) evaluations, which at that time supported occidental orientations (mostly seen among the elite collectors of Bombay and Calcutta), or a pan-Asian orientalism (seen in the Bengal School) in the high arts. On the contrary, Madhavarao and Sayajirao courted experimentation as seen in previous discussions of alternative modernity, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism.

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Conclusion Despite its constant spirit of experiment and innovation, the dynamic Sayajirao’s collecting practice remained well-informed, well-groomed, and efficiently managed to institutionalize itself. The Baroda durbar marked its presence on the regional, national, and international art scene through its many functions such as frequent loans to exhibitions, its role as a prize sponsor, its position as a representative agency for artists such as Varma, and its facilitation of a specialist pool of officers on the exhibitions’ trail. Given Baroda’s early political modernization, the Huzur Cutchery and khangi department lent themselves ably to the acquisition, display, and rotation processes required for the royal collection and promotion of statewide crafts. The disbursal of payments was carried out against an overhauled and highly accountable system of finance and banking in Baroda.

Human Agency and the Archive Within the larger structures of the state and colonial administration, the chapters in this book spotlight numerous subplots and its international human network of artists, referees, officials, exhibition commissioners, state scholars, craftsmen, architects, principals, and engineers who participated in this princely arena of cultural production and display. Their many skill sets that range from field surveys, sourcing, and documentation to the articulation of design, project management, crafting training programmes and syllabi to value ascription are brought to bear on this vast expanse of activities. T. Madhavarao clearly emerges as one of the foremost resource persons who supported the high arts, crafts, their commercial promotion and luxury goods’ commissions at the Lakshmi Vilas and within Baroda State amongst other managers and advisors such as F.A.H. Elliot, F.A. Fillion, Charles Mant, Dinshah Taleyarkhan, and (p. 253) Samuel Fyzee Rahamin. The chemist T.K. Gajjar led Baroda’s integration of crafts, technical education, and industry in a highly successful model. This book also brings to the fore how individual artists and candidates accessed royal residencies for commissions and state budgets for training. Overseas practitioners such as the painter Charles Giron and the sculptor Augusto Felici and local candidates such as the potter Anirudha Jeevatram and the artist Ramachandra Budhwarkar show that royal agency was a pivot around which several specialists and appointees sharpened and presented their artistic talents. Also, the institutionalization of Baroda’s royal collecting practice was achieved through its global outreach. Sayajirao and his close coterie played tastemakers and value arbiters for Baroda’s cultural experiments by utilizing international channels of display, circulation, and sales. Thus ‘Baroda’ emerged as an independent provenance of art and craft production. In its apparent form, this narrative is striking as a story of human players and their agency in the activation of ideas, art commissions, craft production, and their display. However, at its basis lies the archive—the many letters, memos, inventories, contracts, and applications that were exchanged by the participating officials under royal authority, to constitute records of the ‘Huzur Page 8 of 10

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Conclusion Political Office’ currently housed at the Juni Kothi (old fort) in Baroda City. Thus not only are Huzur Sayajirao’s collecting practice and statewide projects revealed in this story as different expressions, but the archive itself becomes an instance of cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and an alternative modernity. This book proves how fresh provincial archival materials can help to liberate colonial histories and Asian art-historical discourses from issues of positionality and hierarchy. One returns to Anju Dodiya’s installation in the Durbar Hall, only to employ it as a visual metaphor for what the entire realm of Baroda’s cultural modernity came to represent. Like the installation’s splintered glass pieces, the view of Baroda’s art and craft space could be read differently, either through a singular shard or taken together as a solid coalition of multiple shards of glass. The extremist nationalists took away singular perspectives of Baroda as a Hindu national state. Economists such as R.C. Dutt chose to see the state administration’s multiple commitments—that to its craftsmen, its peasants, its women, and to many areas such as education, banking, public works, and so on. And when viewed through its archives and art (p.254) collections today, one reads the components of European, indigenous, and the hybrid such that the archive itself emerges as an instance of a highly assimilative and alternative modernity, cosmopolitanism, and nationalism. Much like the visitors who bend over to see these glass shards closely, one pores over to see the three components reflected in the glass: wooden screens and balconies by native artisans, European stained-glass works and their hybrid content, and the luxury Venetian chandeliers. In their sometimes closely hewn, sometimes fluid, and at other times stand-alone reflections, Baroda’s locale-specific model as well as one with transnational and global connections can be read. In closing, it will be appropriate to summarise the contributions of this archive through particular art-historical themes that it covers, such as collecting, academic portraiture, salon sculpture, indigenous crafts, luxury goods, Indian and vernacular design, art schools, polytechnics, commercial workshops, Figure C.1 Throne of Frost by Anju museums, national art, and Dodiya (2007), installation at the Durbar colonial exhibitions. Some of Hall, Lakshmi Vilas Palace, Baroda, 28 the generic themes which the double-panelled paintings with mirror book uses to frame the archival shards, 25 × 60 feet. themes (p.255) and which are of deep interest to South Asian studies are consumption, nationalism, Page 9 of 10

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Conclusion modernism, modernity, Photograph: Pablo Bartholomew. cosmopolitanism, industrialization, identity, native agency in colonial institutions, tastemaking, value ascription, hybridity, and localization. Notes:

(1.) Contextually-grounded readings and the avoidance of external standards are strongly encouraged by Geeta Kapur (2000) and Partha Mitter (2008: 539, 543– 4) in their readings of the so-called peripheral and derivative modernities in art history. (2.) W.G. Archer’s (1959: 43) analysis of modern Indian art is also guided by reductionist criteria wherein the periphery is seen as imitating the West. (3.) The idea of the local as a site for the national would strengthen further from the 1920s with the emergence of what Partha Mitter (2008: 543) refers to as the ‘Indian avant-garde’.

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Appendix I

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.256) Appendix I Biographies of Artists and Craftsmen Engaged with Sayajirao’s Collecting Practice Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Augusto Felici (b. 1851) There is little biographical information available on Felici. He was born in 1851 in Rome and completed his training in art by 1872. St. Anthony of Padua is one of Felici’s most renowned works in Italy. It is a colossal, extant figure that replaced a fifteenth-century sculpture on the facade of Santo in Padua (Ladis 2008: 146).

Charles Giron (1850–1914) Charles Giron trained in Paris for several years. He exhibited his l’Education de Bacchus in the Salon of 1879. Later he spent his time in Switzerland. The Alpine theme influenced his landscapes. Paysans et Paysage was one such famous work exhibited at the Salon of 1885. A small-scale work, Cime de l’Est, was exhibited at the Swiss section of the Paris exhibition in 1900. His portraits were especially feted for creating a Swiss national type (Mobbs 1902: 81–4).

Fanindranath Bose (1888–1926) Bose trained in Edinburgh and apprenticed with Sculptor Percy Portsmouth at the College of Art. He went to Paris on a scholarship and was heavily (p.257) influenced by Auguste Rodin and the Frenchman M.J.A. Mercie’s works. He later made Scotland his home and actively participated in exhibitions across Britain. His impressive debut and sustained presence at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1913 drew significant collectors and artists to Bose’s works. Sir William Goscombe John, who had also apprenticed with Rodin, acquired Bose’s 1916 entry, The Hunter.

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Appendix I Francis Derwent Wood (1871–1926) Francis Derwent Wood was born in 1871 in Cumberland in England’s Lake District. He pursued his art training in Germany and upon his return to London, apprenticed with Édouard Lantéri and Sir Thomas Brock. He taught at the Glasgow School of Art from 1897–1905 and was professor of sculpture at the Royal College of Art from 1918–23. Wood became RA (royal academician) in 1920. His sculptural output included architectural as well as free-standing pieces.

Neelakandan Asari (d. 1907) Neelakandan Asari was the son of master craftsman Kochu Kunju Asari, who was also known as ‘Anantha Padmanabhan Asari’. Kochu Kunju practised and promoted ivory carving in Travancore. The significance of this family of ivory master craftsmen lies in the fact that they were the first guild of ivory workers in Travancore. Before them the royal family depended entirely on the ivory workers of Mysore. This guild was based in Pettah in Travancore. Neelakandan assisted his father Kochu Kunju in the production of the renowned golden chariot for Maharaja Swathi Thirunal (r. 1829–47). This golden chariot became iconic and craftsmen reproduced its motif in subsequent works. Neelakandan also assisted in the creation of a famous ivory throne commissioned during the reign of Uthram Thirunal Marthanda Varma (r. 1847– 60) and loaned to the Great Exhibition of 1851. Neelakandan was a friend of Raja Ravi Varma and a close acquaintance of Dewan T. Madhavarao. His father headed the Department of Ivory Carving at the Industrial School of Arts, Travancore, which is now the Fine Arts College, Trivandrum.1 The idea to open this art (p.258) school was initiated by Dewan T. Madhavarao. Since Kochu Kunju passed away in the 1870s, it is conjectured that Neelakandan may have taken over the department in the same decade. It may have been soon after his Baroda sojourn, which is definitely centred around 1878. It is interesting to learn that despite his placement in the art school, his affiliations with the traditional guild continued in the capacity of its head. Neelakandan passed away in 1907. A newspaper obituary dated 21 March 19072 lauds Neelakandan’s exquisite ivory carvings that were famous across the country and known to have been displayed at exhibitions and fetched several awards. The most prestigious displays by Neelakandan were at the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition and the 1903 Delhi Durbar Exhibition.

Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906) Ravi Varma was born in Kilimanoor in the present-day Kerala. His family was associated with the ruling house of Travancore through matrimonial ties. Varma’s aptitude for art was spotted by his uncle who introduced him to King Ayilyam Thirunal in 1862. Varma secured a place in the Travancore Palace informally and embarked on his career as a salon painter.

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Appendix I Samuel Fyzee Rahamin (b. 1880) Samuel Rahamin was born in Poona. He is believed to have been born as F.R. Samuel, belonging to the Bene Israel community of Jews in India, and converted to Islam after marriage. According to Fatesingh Gaekwad (1989: 30), Rahamin came to Baroda and married one of his subjects, the sister of the begum of Janjira, and hence changed his name to Rahamin/Rehman. According to Gulammohammed Sheikh’s (1997: 266) account, Rahamin married the musician Atiya Begum and moved to Karachi in 1947. After a brief sojourn at the Bombay School of Art, he left for London to train under Solomon J. Solomon and John Singer Sargent at the Royal Academy (Mitter 1994: 99). He practised portraiture in the academic style and also engaged with landscape and mural painting. After his return to India in 1908, he switched to the genre of miniature painting, which was popularly advocated by the Revivalist Bengal School. He exhibited with the Bombay Art Society and had a (p.259) solo show at the Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, in 1914. He was invited to paint the frescoes for the Imperial Secretariat, New Delhi, in 1926–7 and 1928–9. Rahamin also played a crucial role in the reorganization of the oriental sections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Metropolitan Museum, New York. In addition to the visual arts, Rahamin had a keen interest in music and drama.

Valentine Cameron Prinsep (1838–1904) Valentine Prinsep belonged to the Pre-Raphaelite School. Popularly known as Val Prinsep, he studied with G.F. Watts and Charles Gleyre in Paris. Prinsep returned to England and exhibited over a hundred pictures at the Royal Academy from 1862 to 1904. He was elected ARA (associate member of the Royal Academy) in 1879 and RA in 1894. Notes:

(1.) I have accumulated information on Neelakandan Asari through conversations with a descendant, Sharat Sunder Rajeev, from the second line of the family. Sharat Sunder’s source of information is Neelakandan Asari’s great grandson and Kunjan Asari’s son, Hari, an artist and art teacher currently based in Trivandrum. Sharat Sunder is also in the possession of a logbook maintained from 1923 by Neelakandan’s sons. (2.) ‘Neelakandan Asari, an employee of Trivandrum Karakaushalasala (Industrial School of Arts) and a skilled craftsman, passed away on 4th of Meenam (Malayalam month). His skill was best displayed on the artefacts sent for various exhibitions’ (Malayala Manorama, 21 March 1907, translated by Sharat Sunder Rajeev).

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Appendix II

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.260) Appendix II List of Award-winning Items Presented by Kalabhavan–Nazarpaga at Colonial Exhibitions* Priya Maholay-Jaradi

This list provides the year of the award, the venue of host exhibition, and the prizewinning item. Six Gold Medals • 1902, Ahmedabad, Furniture • 1904, Bombay, Furniture • 1904, Pandharpur, Furniture • 1907, Baroda, Miscellaneous Articles • 1907, Surat, Iron Castings • 1908, Bhownagar, Metal & Wood Work Eight Silver Medals • 1902, Ahmedabad, Iron Castings • 1902, Ahmedabad, Clockwork • 1902, Ahmedabad, Dyed Yarn • 1903, Madras, Lacquerwork • 1903, Madras, Carved Work • 1903, Madras, Clocks Page 1 of 2

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Appendix II • 1903, Madras, Calico Printing • 1908, Bhownagar, Dyed Yarn (p.261) Three Bronze Medals • 1903, Madras, Watchmaking Implements • 1903, Madras, Furniture • 1903, Madras, Iron Castings Three Certificates of Merit • 1903, Bhownagar, Furniture • 1904, Bombay, Clockwork • 1904, Bombay, Wood Engraving Notes:

(*) Source: ‘List of Gold, Silver & Bronze Medals & Certificates of Merit awarded to these Workshops for different sorts of articles, manufactured & sent to the different Exhibitions.’ GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: ‘A Short History of the Origin, General Organization and Progress of Nazarpaga Workshops’ by A.M. Masani, Vidyadhikari, 17 September 1909, attached with Memo 102; From: A.M. Masani, Vidyadhikari’s Office, Baroda, 17 September, 1909. GSA/SCV/HPO: Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: Letter 480; From: Dewan Romesh Dutt, Huzur Cutchery, Baroda, 20 September 1909; To: O.V. Bosanquet, Resident of Baroda.

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Appendix III

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.262) Appendix III Baroda Craft Genres Documented in George Birdwood’s The Industrial Arts of India (1880)* Priya Maholay-Jaradi

1. ‘In the Bombay Presidency glass-making has its headquarters at Kapadvanj in the Kaira district of Gujarat. It is made into bangles, beads, bottles, looking-glasses, and the figures of animals, chiefly peacocks, for export to Bombay and Kathiwar (sic). Glass trinkets are also made in the Kheda district of Kandesh, and at Bagmandli in the Ratnagiri collectorate’ (Birdwood 1880: 168). 2. Mentions the chadar or veil commissioned by Khanderao Gaekwad as exemplary in embroidery work. This commission was for the tomb at Medina (Birdwood 1880: 284). 3. Dedicates a subsection to Bombay inlaid work and Ahmedabad mother of pearl work (Birdwood 1880: 205–7). a. A good deal of ornamental furniture is also made in ‘Bombay inlaid work’, so familiar now in the ubiquitous gloveboxes, blotting cases, book stands, workboxes, desks, and card cases, which go by the name of ‘Bombay boxes’ (Birdwood 1880: 205, 206). He traces its origins in Persia and documents its spread from Sindh to Bombay, Surat, Baroda, and Ahmedabad (Birdwood 1880: 206). (p.263) 4. Documents sandalwood carving at Surat, Ahmedabad, Bombay, and Canara in Bombay Presidency (Birdwood 1880: 216). Also informs of how it is applied to the Bombay inlaid work/Bombay boxes (Birdwood 1880: 216). 5. Baked earthen jars of Ahmedabad and Baroda (Birdwood 1880: 310).

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Appendix III 6. Birdwood (1880: 264) cites the example of a kincob in the collection of the Prince of Wales. It is manufactured in Ahmedabad and was presented to the prince by Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda.

Crafts Genres Qualified as Representative of Bombay Presidency/Gujarat/ Other Provinces of Gujarat 1. Documents handsome painted leather shields from Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat. Arms such as shields, daggers, matchlocks from Cashmere, Katch, Vizianagaram (Birdwood 1880: 171). Documents goldsmiths of Katch and their skills in decorating arms in silver, parcelgilt, and gold and speaks of their colonies all over Gujarat and Kathiawar (Birdwood 1880: 151). 2. Metalwork of Gujarat (Birdwood 1880: 155). 3. Praises the copper and brasswork of Bombay Presidency, that is, Nasik, Poona, and Ahmedabad (Birdwood 1880: 160). 4. Iron work of Ahmedabad (Birdwood 1880: 161). 5. Silver and gold repousse work of Katch and Katch silversmiths (Birdwood 1880: 151, 171). 6. Gold and silver work of Gujarat, especially Dholka, Viramgam, and Ahmedabad (Birdwood 1880: 151). 7. Twisted gold wire jewellery of Ahmedabad and Surat (Birdwood 1880: 185). 8. Appreciates the skills of carpenters of Ahmedabad and Dholera who work in blackwood (Birdwood 1880: 201, 202). 9. ‘Mongrel’ blackwood furniture of Bombay, Ahmedabad, Surat, and Madras (Birdwood 1880: 203). 10. Appreciates perfection of the Ahmedabad mother-of-pearl inlay work (Birdwood 1880: 207). 11. Wooden hair combs and manufacture of blackwood combs in villages of Jeswada and Gangdi in the Dohad district of Panch Mahals in (p.264) Gujarat (Birdwood 1880: 218). This is also documented as a ‘special industry of Dohad’ by H.A. Acworth, informs Birdwood. This segment gives employment to nine families at Dohad and six at Jhalod (Birdwood 1880: 225). 12. Lacquered wooden bracelets and wooden toys and other lacquered turnery manufacture at Surat and Ahmedabad in Bombay Presidency (Birdwood 1880: 225). 13. Ivory carving of Surat and Ahmedabad (Birdwood 1880: 218). 14. Tortoise-shell work in armlets and bracelets and other ornaments in parts of Gujarat and Bombay city (Birdwood 1880: 218). 15. Stone carvers of Katch and Kathiawar (Birdwood 1880: 219). 16. Industry of mock ornaments for idols in Ahmedabad (Birdwood 1880: 229, 230). 17. Cotton cloth-weaving in Ahmedabad (Birdwood 1880: 253). 18. Calico at Broach (Birdwood 1880: 260). Page 2 of 3

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Appendix III 19. Printed silks of Surat (Birdwood 1880: 261). 20. Kincobs of Ahmedabad (Birdwood 1880: 262). 21. Lace industry and tinsel ornaments of Ahmedabad, Surat, and Poona; particularly gold and silver thread, gold, and tinfoil (Birdwood 1880: 279). 22. Embroidery of Nauanagar and Gondal in Kathiawar/Cutch (Birdwood 1880: 282). 23. Unglazed earthenware of Ahmedabad (Birdwood 1880: 301, 302). 24. Birdwood’s (1880: 179) chapter on Trappings and Caparisons. 25. ‘All Indian collections are overloaded with gaudy trappings, state caparisons and housings, horse-cloths, elephant-cloths, howdahs, high umbrellas, standards, peacock tails, yak tails, and other ensigns of royalty. But they look very brave in procession through the narrow, picturesque streets … (Birdwood 1880: 179). 26. Mentions the Yuktikalpataru as giving detailed prescriptions on making royal and common umbrellas (as cited by Rajendralala Mitra in his Antiquities of Orissa) (Birdwood 1880: 181). Notes:

(*) Source: C.M. George Birdwood. 1880. The Industrial Arts of India. London: Chapman and Hall Limited.

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Appendix IV

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.265) Appendix IV Baroda Genres and Craftsmen as Documented in George Watt’s Catalogue of the Delhi Durbar Exhibition of 1902–3* Priya Maholay-Jaradi

As compared to George Birdwood’s (1880) documentation of the industrial arts in Appendix IV, note the expansion in the numbers of genres and craftsmen identified from Baroda in George Watt’s (1904) documentation.

Baroda Specimens at Exhibition 1. The Bombay School of Art displayed wrought-iron gates, windows, and so on, designs for which were procured from a series of wrought-iron balustrades from Baroda (Watt 1904: 14). a. Second prize with bronze medal for iron grills from Baroda procured through the chief engineer. 2. Silver and copper repousse work of Baroda found mention as ‘Peculiar Repousse’ for its unique characteristics. ‘The article is first made in wood richly carved, then silver or copper plates are held over the surface and hammered until they assume the pattern given to the wood’ (Watt 1904: 34). 3. Once again, this medium finds mention in the discussion of the Bombay section. ‘In the Presidency of Bombay there are several centres (p.266) noted for copper and brass manufacture. Those of greatest repute, from an art point of view, are Poona, Bombay and Baroda …’ (Watt 1904: 58) a. ‘In Baroda, repousse brass is largely produced by hammering thin plates of brass on to carved wood-work and fixing the plates permanently over the wood’ (Watt 1904: 58).

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Appendix IV b. Award for silver repousse stool on shisham wood by Mistry Raghunath Tribhuvan & Sons of Visnagar. Price: rupees 302 (Watt 1904: 34). c. Commended for stool in wood coating with brass repoussed on the wood (no. 1589), rupees 50, made by Mistry Raghunath Tribhuvan & Sons, Baroda (Watt 1904: 62). 4. The moulded and chased work in silver and copper also finds special mention. This medium is used to produce ‘massive anklets’ (Watt 1904: 34). 5. Commended silver anklet (maize pattern), made at Dabhoi in Baroda (no. 1501), rupees 85. 6. Copper anklets, too, are highlighted as significant craftworks from Baroda. a. Hurgovind Hira of Dabhoi’s massive copper kalla (anklet), chrysanthemum pattern is commended (no. 1078), rupees 10 (Watt 1904: 58, 61). 7. Unglazed or terracotta ware of Patan and Baroda, is acknowledged (Watt 1904: 84, 85). 8. ‘Baroda has sent a few unimportant examples of sandal-wood such as glove-boxes and the like, by Hurgovind Hira Dabhoi’ (Watt 1904: 152). 9. Ahmedabad, Baroda, Bombay, and Surat are acknowledged as sadeli work centres. Sadeli boxes are explained as carved wood boxes that are part of the wide-ranging genre of ‘Bombay-boxes’, which included ivory and sandal in addition to wood (Watt 1904: 156). 10. Turnery and carving of Poona, Kanara, Surat, Baroda, Karachi, Halla, and so on (Watt 1904: 184). 11. Buffalo horn used to produce the famous Baroda spoons in addition to Rajkote combs, Kathiawar knife handles, and Surat and Ahmedabad boxes (Watt 1904: 195). (p.267) 12. ‘Baroda sometimes, however, attempts articles of a higher character, such as the chameleon with scorpion in its mouth, made by Jagjivan Narbheram, carpenter of Nandod, Rajpipla, price: rupees 10’ (Plate no. 43_A, figure 4) (Watt 1904: 195). 13. Rhinoceros-hide shields, boxes, and the like produced at Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat, and Katch (no. 43 B, Figure 7). ‘The designs most generally used are panels showing intricate and elaborate carving after the windows of the Said Sibi Mosque, with dividing and elevated gilded lines between the panels, or the designs are bold floral scrolls derived most probably from the rose and run round the shield as a broad border pattern without any dividing lines’ (Watt 1904: 204). 14. Baroda lac turnery is appreciated for its technique (Watt 1904:. 217– 8). The lac-turned objects are ornamented with tinfoil underneath the varnish (by colouring the varnish yellow, the tinfoil appears as if in gold Page 2 of 4

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Appendix IV shades). ‘Sankheda’ does not find mention as a centre of lac-turned objects. The child’s swinging cot is documented as an exemplary work in this genre (no. 1526, rupees 62) (Watt 1904: 218). 15. Commended for a lacquered cradle: Itcharam Premji of Baroda (Watt 1904: 218). 16. Calico printing in Bombay Presidency at Ahmedabad, Bombay town, Surat, Broach, and Baroda. a. Baroda and Kaira are especially appreciated for their blue-black or dark green colour schemes, ‘the design being mostly minute specks and the borders and end-pieced glaringly distinct, such as stripes in canary yellow, with green and red in alternating bands and similarly coloured rosettes or medallions in the middle of the field’ (Watt 1904: 251). Watt (1904: 251) refers to the example of the Baroda sari from Indian Art Journal, Volume I (1886). 17. ‘A sari in the Loan Collection Gallery, sent by His Highness the Maharaja (Gaekwar) of Baroda will be seen to have a patola centre and rich gold borders and end-pieces. The colours are soft yet full and effective’ (Watt 1904: 257). H.H.’s loans in the Loan Collection Gallery are considered significant and of historic interest since they were worn by the maharanis mostly for their wedding ceremonies (Watt 1904: 332). (p.268) a. All the same contemporary patolas in the sales section are also praised. Rama Chand Mul Chand’s patolas from Patan are ‘commended’ by the exhibition judges (Watt 1904: 257, 337). b. Technique of production of patola (Gupte referred to in Watt 1904: 257). c. ‘In the Pattan form there is no diaper, the pattern is laid sideways (i.e., facing the sides not the ends of the sari) and the border stripes are carried within the field and portray a series of elephants, flowering shrubs, human figures, and birds, repeated in that sequence and so placed that the feet are inwards or towards the centre of the sari, not outwards as is customary with border patterns. The field colour in the Pattan sari is dark blue-green with the patterns in red, white, and yellow’ (Watt 1904: 258). 18. From the collection of gold brocades exhibited by the maharaja of Baroda, the following may be specially commended: no. 1055, a shallu gold auze sari in asvali pattern (Watt 1904: 330). 19. Silks by the maharaja of Baroda (Watt 1904: 484). 20. Powder flasks made from horn and inlay work (Watt 1904: 482). 21. Baroda’s Pearl Carpet. 22. ‘Perhaps if any one article could be singled out as more freely discussed at the Exhibition than any other, it would be the Pearl Carpet of Baroda’ (Watt 1904: 444).

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Appendix IV 23. Large collection of silver sent by the Gaekwad to the exhibition. However, Watt notes that it has a striking similarity to works from Tanjore or Madura or the Poona repousse work and Trichinopoly silver. 24. Silver filigree model of the state elephant with gold gilt howdah (Baroda Museum).

Other Provinces of Gujarat Katch

1. Enamel work of Bhuj. 2. Prizes for silver work by Soni Oomersi Mawji of Bhuj and Soni Mawji Raghavji of Bhuj (Watt 1904: 41). Kathiawar

(p.269) 1. Copper boxes (Watt 1904: 58). 2. Wood carvers of Mangrol produce black wood as in Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad

1. Large and selected assortment of goods such as cabinets, gloveboxes, and the like. (Watt 1904: 152).

Objects that Enjoy a General ‘Gujarat’ Attribution 1. Tray by Fazal Ahmad for rupees 131 (provenance not identified) (Watt 1904: 45). 2. Third prize with bronze medal for surahi in dewali and koft and a shield made by Muhamad Azim of Gujarat (provenance unidentified). 3. In Bombay and some towns of Gujarat tortoise shell is used to make ornaments, card cases, and the like. Regarded as unimportant trade (Watt 1904: 194). 4. Likewise combs, buttons, walking sticks, and the like from buffalo horn (Watt 1904: 194). Notes:

(*) Source: George Watt. 1904. Indian Art at Delhi, 1903: Being the Official Catalogue of the Delhi Exhibition 1902–1903. London: John Murray.

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Glossary

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.270) Glossary Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Abhinayadarpanam Mirror of Gesture—a treatise on stagecraft— written by Nandikeshvara and dated back to second century AD aharya abhinaya Aharya translates into ‘paraphernalia’ and abhinaya refers to ‘histrionics’. The various Indian treatises on stagecraft and performing arts prescribe a code of paraphernalia towards the realization of appropriate moods and situations in dance and drama bag Garden bazaar Marketplace. In this context, bazaar refers to a designated area for popular Indian wares as opposed to the formal set-up of the Indian court or pavilion in the exhibition space Chitralakshana The last section of the Vishnudharmottaram and may have been a later addition, written around seventh century AD. It prescribes rules for painting coolie In this context, coolie refers to a caste-based group of handymen or porters cutchery Colonial English term for hindi kachehri, meaning court. In the context of this book, cutchery refers to office dewan In the Mughal dominion, dewans served as revenue officers. In the colonial period, dewans were prime ministers of princely states Page 1 of 5

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Glossary (p.271) durbar Ceremonial assembly or audience held by a ruling chief; occasionally applied to the ruler himself Dussehra The tenth day of the festival dedicated to the goddess or devi during autumn. The goddess is appeased so that she blesses the new harvest season. Lord Rama, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu, is also believed to have killed the demon Ravana on this day howdah A canopied seat or carriage stationed on the back of an elephant. It is used to carry people for hunting, warfare, or ceremonial pageants javerkhana Treasury Kalabhavan A centre for the arts Kansara A caste-based suffix or surname for coppersmiths of Gujarat and Rajasthan Kathakali One of the seven classical dance styles of India. It is a dance-drama tradition from Kerala that involves the enactment of mythological stories to the beats of the chenda, a long cylindrical drum. The paraphernalia and make-up of the artists is especially elaborate Ghankary A caste-based suffix for people engaged in oil-pressing jobs khangi Household. In the context of this book, it refers to the department of household matters lakshana Characteristic feature. The term ‘lakshana’ is popularly used to describe the characteristic features of musical ragas (notes). In the tradition of sculpture, the term is popularly used to define the iconography of the Buddha Lakshmi Vilas Literally means the ‘home of fortune’. ‘Lakshmi’ refers to the goddess of wealth and prosperity in the Hindu pantheon. The royal palace was named after Sayajirao’s first wife Lakshmi Bai from the Maratha House of Tanjore, who became Maharani Chimna Bai I. She passed away in 1885 (p.272) lota A spherical brass or copper utensil commonly used across South Asia to carry or store water Mahabharata

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Glossary A popular Indian epic dating back to at least 2,000 bc. The Mahabharata is said to have been written by the scribe Ganesha under the dictation of Sage Vyasa. The central plot of the story revolves around a war between two rival branches of a family, the Kauravas and Pandavas. The last part of the epic is the discourse between Lord Krishna and Arjuna, and comprises the Bhagavadgita or the Song of the God Maha Vajra Bhairav Tantra A Buddhist tantric text dating back to eleventh century AD. It contains a section on codes of conduct for a painter Mistry/Mistri A caste-based suffix or surname. Mistrys are associated with building activities and carpentry. They claim descent from the celestial master craftsman Vishwakarmā mohur Refers to a variety of gold coins minted by Mughal emperors, British India, and the native princely states of colonial India. One mohur was equivalent to 15 silver rupees. It was issued until the 1940s when the princely states became part of independent India nawab Nawab was a popular honorific title for the ruling Muslim chiefs of Indian principalities after the disintegration of the Mughal dominion. It is equivalent of ‘raja’, typically used for Hindu rulers nabob Corrupt for nawab Natyashastra Manual for the Performing Arts. It was written by Sage Bharata around 200 bc. It discusses aspects of stagecraft, music, dance, and a theory of aesthetics nayika Heroine. This term is especially used in devotional poetry and Indian classical dance (p.273) to describe the heroine who seeks spiritual union with the Lord. The Sanskrit treatise Natyashastra classifies eight types of heroines based on eight situations and their resultant moods Nazarpaga According to F.A.H. Elliot, three sets of paga formed the state cavalry. One of these may have comprised horses that were received or given away as nazar/nazarana (gifts). Hence, Nazarpaga derives its name from this paga of horses. It may have been erected on a site that was originally a horse stable Nowgany A caste-based suffix for people engaged in oil-pressing jobs puranic Page 3 of 5

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Glossary Of the puranas. Puranas are a corpus of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist narratives of cosmology, philosophy, and geography. The corpus consists of 18 texts. Their narratives have been passed down through oral tradition; their compilation is dated to the third century AD Ramayana An ancient Indian epic. The Ramayana is attributed to Sage Valmiki. The protagonist Rama is an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. In the avatar of a noble king, dutiful husband, son, and brother, Rama descends on earth to conquer evil rasa Essence/juice/emotion. The Sankrit treatise Natyashastra engages with the theory of rasa or aesthetics. Rasa may be understood as the final aesthetic inference of an artwork on the part of the beholder sanad Equivalent of a Mughal farman. It was a deed of guarantee for succession to the throne. Sanads were also testimonials or certificates of protection and/or recognition shikar damni A palanquin for hunting expeditions sringara In this context, sringara refers to the romantic or erotic mood, among several others in which (p.274) a protagonist may be portrayed. As mentioned earlier, the Sanskrit treatise Natyashastra classifies eight types of heroines based on eight situations and their resultant moods, with sringara being one subha A designation/rank within the princely states’ administration; in charge of a district/division Suthar A caste-based suffix or surname for woodworkers/carpenters across western and northern India swadeshi Self-rule; popularly used to describe the nationalist movement in colonial India Swami God. Swami is also used as a prefix for an ascetic or teacher of a monastic order. It is used as an honorific title to address one’s husband in some Indian traditions swari Derived from the Hindi savari that refers differently to transport, ride, carriage, procession, conveyance, or even the occupant. In the context of this book, it means Sayajirao’s ‘travels’ or ‘rides’ to the various districts of Baroda State as part of his administrative surveys tahsildar Page 4 of 5

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Glossary Tax collector of tahsils, which mean subdivisions within a district Thullal A southern Indian performing-art tradition that is a composite form of poetry, recitation, dance, and music upadhyaya A preceptor or teacher of the Brahmin caste usually associated with expertise in Sanskrit grammar Vidyadhikari Minister of education Vishnudharmottaram A subsidiary purana dating back to fourth century AD. In addition to chapters on cosmology, astronomy, genealogy, it consists of rules on music, sculpture, and painting (p.275) wada A courtyard-style house that represents vernacular architectural traditions of western India, chiefly Maharashtra and Gujarat zamindar A landowner zenana Inner chambers of a house or palace reserved for the women of the household

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Bibliography

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.276) Bibliography Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Primary Sources Archival Sources Gujarat State Archives (GSA); Southern Circle, Vadodara (SCV); Huzur Political Office (HPO)

Section 16, Daftar 23, File 6: ‘Khāṇgi Department: Royal Family: Photographers, Artists (1876–1908)’. Section 17, Daftar 29, File 17: ‘Europe Trips: Purchase of Articles in Europe (1892)’. Section 59, Daftar 100, File 1: Applications for Patronage (1875–1878). Section 59, Daftar 101, File 8: ‘Applications for Patronage: Applications from Candidates Desirous of Going to England (1888–1896)’. Section: 59, Daftar 101, File 11: ‘Applications for Patronage: Applications for Technical Education Scholarships, Part II (1889–1896)’. Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: ‘Exhibitions: India & Europe (1878–1884)’. Section 65, Daftar 111, File 3: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions in India and Europe, Part III (1890–1911)’. Section 65, Daftar 111, File 4: ‘Exhibitions: Simla Fine Arts Exhibition (1879– 1895)’. Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: ‘Exhibitions: Chicago Exhibition (1892–1895)’.

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Bibliography Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: ‘Exhibitions: Poona Fine Arts Exhibition (1879– 1896)’. Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions General Correspondence (1900–1915)’. Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions in London (1884– 1911)’. Section 65, Daftar 112, File 9: ‘Exhibitions: Mysore Exhibitions (1907–1914)’. Section: 65, Daftar 112, File 11: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions held in the Baroda State (1914–1928)’. (p.277) Section 65, Daftar 112, File 12: ‘Exhibitions: The British Empire Exhibition, London (1924)’. Section 79, Daftar 464, File 3: ‘Education Department: The Kalābhavan, Etc.’ Section 84, Daftar 470, Files 6, 9, 10: ‘Education Department: Europe Students’. Section 84, Daftar 471, File 20: ‘Education Department: Europe Students’. Section 85, Daftar 472, Files 7, 19: ‘Education Department: Miscellaneous Correspondence Regarding Education: Tuition to the Students (Potters) from Pattan in the Art of Glazing Pots’. Section 99, Daftar 126, File 5: ‘Correspondence with Merchants, Etc.: Thacker & Co. (1880–1890)’. Section 99, Daftar 127, File 10: ‘Miscellaneous Department: Correspondence with Merchants, Etc.: Messrs P. Orr & Sons (1880)’. Section 99, Daftar 127, File 12: ‘Correspondence with Merchants: Messrs Deschamp & Co., Bombay’. Section 99, Daftar 127, File 15: ‘Correspondence with Merchants: Correspondence with Chamber of Commerce, Bombay: Photographers’. Section 99, Daftar 128, File 31: ‘Correspondence with Merchants: Miscellaneous Merchants, Photographers’. Section 99, Daftar 128, File 38: ‘Correspondence with Merchants, Etc: P. Orr & Sons (1896–1898)’. Section 99, Daftar 129, File 39: ‘Correspondence with Merchants, Etc: Correspondence with Messrs Tyabji & Co. (1888–1892)’.

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Bibliography Section 100, Daftar 132, File 31: ‘Books: Journal of Indian Art & Industry 1884– 1916’. Section 233, Daftar 345, File 2: ‘Industries: Correspondence Regarding the Manufacture of Pottery’. National Archives of India, New Delhi

Proceedings of the Foreign Department, September 1903. Foreign Department, Files 132–5: Internal, Part B, Simla, 1891: ‘Employment of Mr. C. Giron as Artist, Dec. 1891’. Foreign Department, Diary No. 124-I: Baroda, 1890: Notes and Orders: ‘Employment of Mr. Augusto Felici, 1889–1890’. Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883–1884’. Foreign Department, File 107: Internal, Part A, July 1885: ‘Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886’. Contemporary Sources

Baroda Administration Report 1910–11: Published by Order of His Highness the Maharaja Gaekwar. 1912. Bombay: Times Press. Baroda Administration Report 1920–21: Published by Order of His Highness the Maharaja Gaekwar. 1922. Bombay: Times Press. (p.278) Birdwood, George C.M. 1880. The Industrial Arts of India. London: Chapman and Hall Limited. Buck, Edward J. 1925. Simla, Past and Present. Bombay: Times Press. Burgers, J.A.S. and H. Cousens. 1888. The Antiquities of the Town of Dabhoi in Gujarat: Published by Order of HH Maharaja Sayajirav Gaikwar GCSI of Baroda. Edinburgh: George Waterston and Sons. Cundall, Frank. 1886. Reminiscences of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition. London: William Clowes. Cunningham, Alexander. 1854. The Bhilsa Topes: A Brief Historical Sketch of the Rise, Progress and Decline of Buddhism. London: Allen. ———. 1873. Four Reports. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. Desai, Govindbhai and A.B. Clarke. 1923. Gazetteer of the Baroda State, Volume II: Administration. Bombay: Times Press.

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Bibliography Desai, Govindbhai R.B. 1929. Forty Years in Baroda: Being Reminiscences of Forty Years’ Service in the Baroda State. Baroda: Pustakalaya Sahayak Sahakari Mandal Limited. Diver, Maud. 1943. Royal India: A Descriptive and Historical Study of India’s Fifteen Principal States and their Rulers. London: Hodder & Stoughton Limited. Dutt, R.C. 1907. Baroda Administration Report 1905–06: Compiled Under the Orders of His Highness the Maharaja Gaekwar. Bombay: British India Printing Works. Edwardes, Michael. 1861. A History of India. London: Thames and Hudson. Elliot, F.A.H. 1883. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume VII, Baroda, under Government Orders. Bombay: Government Central Press. Fergusson, James. 1845. Illustration of the Rock-Cut Temples of India. London: Weale. ———. 1848. Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindostan. London: Hogarth. ———. 1876. History of Indian and Eastern Architecture. London: Murray. Gaekwad, Sayaji Rao. 1927 [1904]. ‘Speech to the National Social Conference’, 30 December, in Speeches and Addresses of His Highness Sayaji Rao III, Maharaja of Baroda, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gaekwar, Sayaji Rao. 2013 [1901]. Notes on the Famine Tour by His Highness the Maharaja Gaekwar. London: Forgotten Books. Grindlay, Captain Robert Melville. 1826. Scenery, Costumes, and Architecture Chiefly on the Western Side of India. London: R. Ackermann/Smith, Elder & Co. Hendley, Thomas H. 1884. Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition, 1883. London: W. Griggs. Jones, Owen. 1982 [1856]. The Grammar of Ornament. New York, Cincinnati, Toronto, London, and Melbourne: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company. Mukharji, T.N. 1888. Art Manufactures of India: Specially Compiled for the Glasgow International Exhibition, 1888. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, India. (p.279) North, Marianne. 1894. Recollections of a Happy Life, Being the Autobiography of Marianne North, Edited by Her Sister, Mrs. John Addington Symonds. New York and London: Macmillan and Co.

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Bibliography Pillai, S.A. 1928. Ravi Varma and His Art. Quilon: S.A. Pillai. Prinsep, Valentine Cameron. 1879. Imperial India: An Artist’s Journals. London: Chapman and Hall Limited. Rice, Stanley. 1931. Life of Sayaji Rao III: Maharaja of Baroda, Vols 1 and 2. London: Oxford University Press. Soares, Anthony X. (ed.). 1933. Speeches and Addresses of Sayaji Rao III, Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda. London, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras: Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford. Madhava Rao, T. 1881. Minor Hints: Lectures Delivered to HH Maharaja Gaekwar, Sayaji Rao III. Bombay: British India Press, available at https:// archive.org/stream/minorhintslectur00madhiala/ minorhintslectur00madhiala_djvu.txt (accessed on 6 February 2015). Tampy, K.P. Padmanabhan. 1934. Ravi Varma: A Monograph. Trivandrum: Kripon and Co. Tottenham, E.L. 1934. Highnesses of Hindostan. London: Grayson and Grayson. ‘Two Scholarships given by Gaekwar’, in Telegram Portland, 13 July 1906. Referred to at Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Archives. Watt, George. 1904. Indian Art at Delhi, 1903: Being the Official Catalogue of the Delhi Exhibition 1902–1903. London: John Murray. Weeden, Edward St. Clair. 1911. A Year with the Gaekwar of Baroda. London: Hutchinson & Co. West, Edward (ed.). 1872. Diary of the Late Rajah of Kolhapoor during His Visit to Europe in 1870. London: Smith, Elder and Co. Yates. W. 1847. Dictionary, Hindustani and English. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press. Artists’ Diaries

Varma, C. Raja Raja. 1895–1906. The Diary of the Late C. Raja Raja Varma Artist, Brother of the Late Raja Ravi Varma, Artist. Copied by S. Srinivasan Potty. Moodathamadhom, Trivandrum. Varma, C. Raja Raja. 1896. A Narrative of the Tour in Upper India of His Highness Prince Martanda Varma of Travancore. Bombay: Education Societies Steam Press.

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Bibliography Secondary Sources Books

Appadurai, Arjun (ed.). 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (p.280) Archer, Mildred and Graham Parlett. 1992. Company Paintings: Indian Paintings of the British Period. London and Ahmedabad: Victoria and Albert Museum with Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Archer, Mildred. 1979. India and British Portraiture: 1770–1825. London, New York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, Totowa N.J. ———. 1980. Early Views of India: The Picturesque Journeys of Thomas and William Daniell, 1786–1794. London: Thames and Hudson. Archer, William George. 1959. India and Modern Art. London: George Allen and Unwin. Asher, Catherine and Thomas R. Metcalf (eds). 1994. Perceptions of South Asia’s Visual Past. New Delhi: American Institute of Indian Studies. Barbier, Carl Paul. 1963. William Gilpin: His Drawings, Teaching and Theory of the Picturesque. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Barringer, Tim and Tom Flynn. (eds). 1998. Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum. London: Routledge. Baudrillard, Jean. 1994. ‘The System of Collecting’, in John Elsner and Roger Cardinal (eds), The Cultures of Collecting, pp. 7–24. London: Reaktion Books. Bayly, C.A. 1996. Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bhabha, Homi. 1994. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge. Breckenridge, Carol and Peter van der Veer (eds). 1993. Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Brown, Rebecca. 2009. Art for a Modern India: 1947–1980. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Chaitanya, Krishna. 1960. Contemporary Indian Art Series: Ravi Varma. New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi. Chakrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

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Bibliography ———. 2002. Habitations of Modernity: Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chatterjee, Partha. 1986. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse. London: Zed Books. ———. 1989. ‘The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question’, in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (eds), Recasting Women. New Delhi: Kali for Women, pp. 233–53. Chawla, Rupika. 2010. Raja Ravi Varma: Painter of Colonial India. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing. Chavda, V.K. 1972. Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III. New Delhi: National Book Trust. Chiu, Melissa and Benjamin Genocchio. 2010. Contemporary Asian Art. London: Thames and Hudson. Codell, Julie F. and Dianne Sachko Macleod (eds). 1998. Orientalism Transposed: The Impact of the Colonies on British Culture. Aldershot and Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Limited. (p.281) Codell, Julie F. (ed.). 2003. Imperial Co-Histories: National Identities and the British and Colonial Press. London: Associated University Presses. Cohn, Bernard. 1992. ‘Transformation of Objects into Artifacts, Antiquities and Art in Nineteenth-Century India’, in Barbara Stoler-Miller (ed.), The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 301–29. ———. 1996. Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. 1964. The Arts and Crafts of India & Ceylon. New York: Noonday Press. Copland, Ian. 1982. The British Raj and the Indian Princes: Paramountcy in Western India, 1857–1930. New Delhi: Orient Longman. Delanty, Gerard (ed.). 2012. Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies. London and New York: Routledge. Desai, Gaurav and Supriya Nair (eds). 2005. Postcolonialisms: An Anthology of Cultural Theory and Criticism. New Brunswick and New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. Desai, Vishakha N. (ed.). 2007. Asian Art History: In the Twenty-First Century. Massachussets: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

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Bibliography Dewan, Deepali. 2003. ‘Scripting South Asia’s Visual Past: The Journal of Indian Art and Industry and the Production of Knowledge in the Late Nineteenth Century’, in Julie Codell (ed.), Imperial Co-Histories: National Identities and the British and Colonial Press. London: Associated University Presses, pp. 29–44. ———. 2004. ‘The Body at Work: Colonial Art Education and the Figure of the Native Craftsman’, in James H. Mills and Satadru Sen (eds), Confronting the Body: The Politics of Physicality in Colonial and Post-Colonial India. London: Anthem Press, pp 118–34. Dirks, Nicholas B. (ed.). 1996. ‘Foreword’, in Bernard Cohn (ed.), Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. ix–xvii. Doshi, Saryu (ed.). 1995. The Royal Bequest: Art Treasures of the Baroda Museum and Picture Gallery. Bombay: India Book House. During, Simon (ed.). 1999. The Cultural Studies Reader. London, New York: Routledge. Durost, Walter Nelson. 1932. Children’s Collecting Activity Related to Social Factors. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teacher’s College, Columbia University. Dutt, Romesh Chunder. 1950a. The Economic History of India in the Victorian Age: From the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the Commencement of the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ———. 1950b. The Economic History of India under Early British Rule: From the Rise of the British Power in 1757, to the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. (p.282) Dutta, Arindam. 2006. The Beauty of Bureaucracy: Design in the Age of Its Global Reproducibility. London: Routledge. Elsner, John and Roger Cardinal (eds). 1994. The Cultures of Collecting. London: Reaktion Books. Feroz ud Din, Moulvi. 2004 [1897]. Rangeen Feroz-ul-Lughat Urdu Jamay. Lahore: Ferozsons. Gaekwad, Fatesinghrao P. 1980. The Palaces of India. London: Collins. Gaekwad, Fatesinghrao P. 1989. Sayaji Rao of Baroda: The Prince and the Man. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar (ed.). 2001. Alternative Modernities. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

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Bibliography Ghosh, Manmohan. 1975. Nandikesvara’s Abhinayadarpanam: A Manual of Gesture and Posture Used in Ancient Indian Dance and Drama. Calcutta: Manisha Granthalaya. Godrej, Pheroza J. 2002. ‘Faces from the Mists of Time’, in Pheroza J. Godrej and Firoza Punthakey-Mistree (eds), Zoroastrian Tapestry: Art, Religion and Culture. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing, pp. 325–48. Greenhalgh, Paul. 1991. Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Guha-Thakurta, Tapati. 1992. The Making of a New ‘Indian Art’: Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal, c. 1850–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2004. Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India. New York: Columbia University Press. Hardiman, David. 1978. ‘Baroda: The Structure of a “Progressive” State’, in Robin Jeffrey (ed.), People, Princes, and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 107–35. Hoffenberg, Peter. 2001. An Empire on Display: English, Indian, and Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War. California: University of California Press. Jackson, Anna and Amin Jaffer (eds). 2004. Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe, 1500–1800. London, New York: Victoria and Albert Museum, Harry N. Abrams. Jaffer, Amin. 2006. Made for Maharajas: A Design Diary of Princely India. New York: Vendome Press. ———. 2009. ‘Indian Princes and the West’, in Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer (eds), Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, pp. 194–226. Jeffrey, Robin (ed.). 1978. People, Princes, and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. John, Elsner and Cardinal Roger (eds). 1994. The Cultures of Collecting. London: Reaktion Books. (p.283) Kapur, Geeta (ed.). 2000. ‘When was Modernism in Indian Art?’, in When Was Modernism: Essays on Contemporary Cultural Practice in India. New Delhi: Tulika Books. Page 9 of 16

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Bibliography Kooiman, Dick. 2002. Communalism and Indian Princely States: Travancore, Baroda and Hyderabad in the 1930s. New Delhi: Manohar. Kothekara, Santa. 1977. The Gaikwads of Baroda and the East India Company: 1770–1820. Nagpur: Nagpur University. Ladis, Andrew. 2008. Victims and Villains in Vasari’s Lives. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. London, Christopher W. 2015. ‘Cosmopolitanism Articulated: The Evolution of Architecture from Wada to Palace’, in Priya Maholay Jaradi (ed.), Baroda: A Cosmopolitan Provenance in Transition. Bombay: Marg Publications, pp. 46–69. Macaulay, Thomas Babington. 2005. ‘Minute on Indian Education, February 2, 1835’, in Gaurav Desai and Supriya Nair (eds), Postcolonialisms: An Anthology of Cultural Theory and Criticism. New Brunswick and New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, pp. 121–31. Maholay-Jaradi, Priya. 2011. Parsi Portraits from the Studio of Raja Ravi Varma. Bombay: K.R. Cama Oriental Institute. ———. (ed.) 2015. Baroda: A Cosmopolitan Provenance in Transition. Bombay: Marg Publications. Mangharam, Parsram. 2003. Raja Ravi Varma: The Painter Prince 1848–1906. Bangalore: Temple Trees Publications. Markovits, Claude. 2004. A History of Modern India: 1480–1950, Anthem South Asian Studies. London: Anthem Press. Mathur, Saloni. 2007. India by Design: Colonial History and Cultural Display. London: University of California Press. Mayer, Roberta A. 2008. Lockwood de Forest: Furnishing the Gilded Age with a Passion for India. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Press. McGowan, Abigail. 2009. Crafting the Nation in Colonial India. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mehta, R.N. 1995. Genesis and Activities of the Museum and Picture Gallery, Vadodara. Baroda: Department of Museums. Mercer, Kobena. 2005. Cosmopolitan Modernisms. Cambridge, Massachussets: MIT Press. Metcalf, Thomas. 1989. An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain’s Raj. London Boston: Faber and Faber.

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Bibliography ———. 1994. Ideologies of the Raj, The New Cambridge History of India, Vol. III, Part 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Michell, George. 1994. The Royal Palaces of India. London: Thames and Hudson. Miller, Barbara Stoler (ed.). 1992. The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mills, James H. and Satadru Sen (eds). (2004). Confronting the Body: The Politics of Physicality in Colonial and Post-Colonial India. London: Anthem Press. (p.284) Mirzoeff, Nicholas (ed.). 1998. The Visual Culture Reader. London and New York: Routledge. Mitchell, Timothy. 2000. Questions of Modernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mitter, Partha. 1977. Much Maligned Monsters: A History of European Reactions to Indian Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1994. Art and Nationalism in Colonial India: Occidental Orientations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2007. The Triumph of Modernism: India’s Artists and the Avant-Garde: 1922–47. London: Reaktion Books. Nair, Janaki. 2011. Mysore Modern: Rethinking the Region under Princely Rule. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Pal, Pratapaditya and Vidya Dehejia (eds). 1986. From Merchants to Emperors: British Artists and India, 1757–1930. Ithaca and New York: Cornell University Press. Panikkar K.N. 2007. Colonialism, Culture and Resistance. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Panikkar, Shivaji K., Parul Dave Mukherji, and Deeptha Achar (eds). 2003. Towards a New Art History: Studies in Indian Art. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld. Parimoo, Ratan (ed.). 1998. The Legacy of Raja Ravi Varma: The Painter. Baroda: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Trust. Parimoo, Ratan and Sandip Sarkar (eds). 2009. The Historical Development of Contemporary Indian Art: 1880–1947. New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi. Pearce, Susan (ed.). 1994. Interpreting Objects and Collections. London and New York: Routledge.

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Bibliography Peleggi, Maurizio. 2002. Lords of Things: The Fashioning of the Siamese Monarchy’s Modern Image. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Pinney, Christopher. 2004. Photos of the Gods: The Printed Image and Political Struggle in India. London: Reaktion Books. Poshyananda, Apinan (ed.). 1996. Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions. New York: Asia Society Galleries. Prakash, Gyan. 1999. Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pratinidhi, Bhavanrao Pant. 1946. Autobiography of Balasaheb: Raja of Aundh. Poona: D.G. Kulkarni Press. Raja, R.P. (ed.). 2002. ‘Ravi Varma: The Unknown’, in Sree Padmanabhan Swamy Temple Renovation Souvenir. Trivandrum: Surrender, pp. 422–3. Ramaswamy, Sumathi (ed.). 2003. Beyond Appearances? Visual Practices and Ideologies in Modern India. New Delhi, California, and London: SAGE Publications. Ramusack, Barbara N. 2004. The New Cambridge History of India: The Indian Princes and Their States, Vol. 3.6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ravi Varma: The Indian Artist. Madras: G.A. Natesan & Co. (p.285) Rizvi, Maulvi Syed Tassadduq Hussain. 2003. Lughat-i-Kishori (FarsiUrdu). Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications. Robb, Peter and David Taylor. 1979. Rule, Protest, Identity: Aspects of Modern South Asia. London: Curzon Press. Roy, Tirthankar. 1999. Traditional Industry in the Economy of Colonial India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2006. The Economic History of India, 1857–1947. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Second edition. Sadwelkar, Baburao. 1989. Story of a Hundred Years: The Bombay Art Society, 1888–1988. Bombay: Bombay Art Society. Said, Edward. 1991 [1978]. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. London and New York: Penguin. Sergeant, Philip W. 1928. The Ruler of Baroda: An Account of the Life and Work of the Maharaja Gaekwar. London: John Murray. Shah, M.H. 1942. Baroda by Decades: 1871–1941. Baroda: M.H. Shah. Page 12 of 16

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Bibliography Sharma, R.C. (ed.). 1993. Raja Ravi Varma: New Perspectives. New Delhi: National Museum. Singh, Kavita. 2009. ‘Material Fantasy: The Museum in Colonial India’, in Gayatri Sinha (ed.), Art and Visual Culture in India: 1857–2007. Bombay: Marg Publications, pp. 40–57. Sinha, Gayatri (ed.). 2009. Art and Visual Culture in India: 1857–2007. Bombay: Marg Publications. ———. (ed.). 1997. ‘The Backdrop’, in Contemporary Art in Baroda. Madras: Tulika Books, pp. 17–51. ———. (ed.) 1997. Contemporary Art in Baroda. Madras: Tulika Books. Stewart, Susan. 2003. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Tarar, Nadeem Omar. 2003. ‘Historical Introduction’, in Nadeem Omar Tarar, Tahir Mahmood, and Samina Choonara (eds), Official Chronicle of Mayo School of Art: Formative Years under J.L. Kipling (1874–94). Lahore: National College of Arts Publications, pp. 21–9. Tillotson, G.H.R. 1989. The Tradition of Indian Architecture: Continuity, Controversy and Change Since 1850. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Tillotson, Giles. 2000. The Artificial Empire: The Indian Landscapes of William Hodges. Surrey: Curzon. Vandal, Pervaiz and Sajida Vandal. 2006. The Raj, Lahore and Bhai Ram Singh. Lahore: National College of Arts. Varma, Marthanda K. 1964. Raja Ravi Varma. Trivandrum: K.M. Varma. Vasudev, Shefalee. 2012. Powder Room. Noida: Random House. Vatsyayan, Kapila. 1974. Indian Classical Dance. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. ———. 1983. The Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts. New Jersey: Humanities Press. Venniyoor, E.M.J. 1981. Raja Ravi Varma. Kerala: Government of Kerala. (p.286) Waltraud, Ernst and Biswamoy Pati (eds). 2007. India’s Princely States: People, Princes, and Colonialism, Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia. London and New York: Routledge. Page 13 of 16

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Bibliography Zitzewitz, Karin. 2014. The Art of Secularism: The Cultural Politics of Modernist Art in Contemporary India. New York: Oxford University Press. Journals and Other Articles

Bhagavan, Manu. 2001. ‘Demystifying the “Ideal Progressive”: Resistance through Mimicked Modernity in Princely Baroda, 1900–1913’, Modern Asian Studies, 35(2): 385–409. ———. 2002. ‘The Rebel Academy: Modernity and the Movement for a University in Princely Baroda, 1908–1949’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 61(3): 919–47. Breckenridge, Carol. 1989. ‘The Aesthetics and Politics of Colonial Collecting’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 31(2): 195–216. Chatterjee, Ramananda. 1907. ‘Ravi Varma’, The Modern Review, (January). Codell, Julie F. 2003. ‘Ironies of Mimicry: The Art Collection of Sayaji Rao III Gaekwad, Maharaja of Baroda, and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern India’, Journal of the History of Collections, 15(1): 127–46. Dehejia, Vidya. 1998. ‘The Very Idea of a Portrait’, Ars Orientalis, 28: 40–8. Delanty, Gerard. 2008. ‘The Cosmopolitan Imagination’, Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, 82/83: 217–30. Dodiya, Anju. 2012. Domus, IndiaAdditions, 1(10). Doshi, Saryu (ed.). 1985. ‘Miniature Painting’, in Maharashtra: Traditions in Art (Marg), XXXVI(4): 49–64. Gupte, B.A. 1886. ‘The Baroda Court’, The Journal of Indian Art and Industry, 1: 126–33. Kaimal, Padma. 2000. ‘The Problem of Portraiture in South India, Circa 90–1000 A.D.’, Artibus Asiae, 60(1): 139–79. Khair, Tabish. 2001. ‘Modernism and Modernity: The Patented Fragments’, Third Text, 15(55): 3–13. Maholay-Jaradi, Priya. 2013 ‘Alternative Modernity: Re-imagining Asia and Africa’, The Newsletter, 66(Winter): 46. Mehta, Makarand. 1992. ‘Science Versus Technology: The Early Years of Kalabhavan, Baroda, 1890–1896’, Indian Journal of History of Science, 27(2): 145–70. Mitter, Partha. 2008. ‘Interventions: Decentering Modernism: Art History and Avant-Garde Art from the Periphery’, The Art Bulletin, 90(4), 531–48. Page 14 of 16

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Bibliography Mobbs, Robert. 1902. ‘A Swiss Painter: Charles Giron’, The Studio. 25(108): 80– 6. Nair, Savithri Preetha. 2005. ‘Native Collecting and Natural Knowledge (1797– 1832): Raja Serfoji II of Tanjore as a “Centre of Calculation”’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 15(3): 279–302. (p.287) Peterson, Indira Viswanathan. 1999. ‘The Cabinet of King Serfoji of Tanjore: A European Collection in Early Nineteenth-Century India’, Journal of the History of Collections, 11(1): 71–93. Pinney, Christopher. 1997. ‘The Nation (Un)Pictured: Chromolithography and “Popular” Politics in India’, Critical Inquiry, 23(3): 834–67. Ravi Varma: The Indian Artist. 1903. Allahabad: Indian Press. Ray, Sugata. 2014. ‘Colonial Frames, “Native” Claims: The Jaipur Economic and Industrial Museum’, The Art Bulletin, 96(2): 196–212. Sachdev, Vibhuti. 2012. ‘Negotiating Modernity in the Princely State of Jaipur’, South Asian Studies, 28(2): 171–81. Sarkar, Tanika. 1992. ‘The Hindu Wife and the Hindu Nation: Domesticity and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal’, Studies in History, 8(2): 213–35. Sinha, Ajay. 2008. ‘Response: Modernism in India: A Short History of a Blush’, The Art Bulletin, 90(4): 561–8. Spear, Jeffrey L. 2008. ‘A South Kensington Gateway from Gwalior to Nowhere’, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500–1900, 48(4): 911–21. Tarapor, Mahrukh. 1980. ‘John Lockwood Kipling and British Art Education in India’, Victorian Studies, 24(1): 53–81. Tarar, Nadeem Omar. 2011. ‘From Primitive Artisans to Modern Craftsmen: Colonialism, Culture, and Art Education in the Late Nineteenth-Century Punjab’, South Asian Studies, 27(2): 199–219. Tillotson, Giles. 2004. ‘The Jaipur Exhibition of 1883’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 14(2): 111–26. Exhibition and Museum Catalogues

Dehejia, Vidya (ed.). 2008. Delight in Design: Indian Silver for the Raj. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing. Dodiya, Anju, Nancy Adajania, and Sharada Dwivedi. 2007. Throne of Frost. Delhi: Bodhi Art.

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Bibliography Goetz, Hermann and Annemarie Goetz. 1961. Catalogue of the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. Baroda: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. Jaffer, Amin. 2001. Furniture from British India and Ceylon: A Catalogue of the Collections in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum. London: Victoria and Albert Museum. Maholay, Priya. 2002. Portrait of a Community: Paintings and Photographs of the Parsees. Bombay: Chemould Publications and Arts Trust. Theses and Manuscripts

Maholay, Priya. 2000. Rasa in the Works of Raja Ravi Varma. MA Directed Readings. London: School of Oriental and African Studies. (p.288) Internet Sources

The Academy of Architecture and Architectural Review, available at http:// www.architectural-review.com/about-the-ar/history/ar-history/8603298.article. Industrial Extension Cottage: A Government of Gujarat Organization, India; Craft of Gujarat, available at http://craftofgujarat.com/showpage.aspx? contentid=1. Central Cottage Industries Emporium: Central Cottage Industries Corporation of India Ltd: A Govt. of India Undertaking, Ministry of Textiles, available at http:// www.cottageemporium.in/. India Info Web: Arts and Crafts in Gujarat, available at http:// www.indiainfoweb.com/gujarat/art-crafts/gurjari.html. ‘Patola from Patan Scorches the Ramp’, 12 December 2009, The Times of India, available at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Patola-fromPatan-scorches-the-ramp/articleshow/5328410.cms (accessed on 23 April 2016). Frick Centre for the History of Collecting: The Frick Collection, New York, available at http://www.frick.org/research/center.

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Bibliography

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.276) Bibliography Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Primary Sources Archival Sources Gujarat State Archives (GSA); Southern Circle, Vadodara (SCV); Huzur Political Office (HPO)

Section 16, Daftar 23, File 6: ‘Khāṇgi Department: Royal Family: Photographers, Artists (1876–1908)’. Section 17, Daftar 29, File 17: ‘Europe Trips: Purchase of Articles in Europe (1892)’. Section 59, Daftar 100, File 1: Applications for Patronage (1875–1878). Section 59, Daftar 101, File 8: ‘Applications for Patronage: Applications from Candidates Desirous of Going to England (1888–1896)’. Section: 59, Daftar 101, File 11: ‘Applications for Patronage: Applications for Technical Education Scholarships, Part II (1889–1896)’. Section 65, Daftar 111, File 1: ‘Exhibitions: India & Europe (1878–1884)’. Section 65, Daftar 111, File 3: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions in India and Europe, Part III (1890–1911)’. Section 65, Daftar 111, File 4: ‘Exhibitions: Simla Fine Arts Exhibition (1879– 1895)’. Section 65, Daftar 111, File 5: ‘Exhibitions: Chicago Exhibition (1892–1895)’.

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Bibliography Section 65, Daftar 111, File 6: ‘Exhibitions: Poona Fine Arts Exhibition (1879– 1896)’. Section 65, Daftar 111, File 7: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions General Correspondence (1900–1915)’. Section 65, Daftar 112, File 8-A: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions in London (1884– 1911)’. Section 65, Daftar 112, File 9: ‘Exhibitions: Mysore Exhibitions (1907–1914)’. Section: 65, Daftar 112, File 11: ‘Exhibitions: Exhibitions held in the Baroda State (1914–1928)’. (p.277) Section 65, Daftar 112, File 12: ‘Exhibitions: The British Empire Exhibition, London (1924)’. Section 79, Daftar 464, File 3: ‘Education Department: The Kalābhavan, Etc.’ Section 84, Daftar 470, Files 6, 9, 10: ‘Education Department: Europe Students’. Section 84, Daftar 471, File 20: ‘Education Department: Europe Students’. Section 85, Daftar 472, Files 7, 19: ‘Education Department: Miscellaneous Correspondence Regarding Education: Tuition to the Students (Potters) from Pattan in the Art of Glazing Pots’. Section 99, Daftar 126, File 5: ‘Correspondence with Merchants, Etc.: Thacker & Co. (1880–1890)’. Section 99, Daftar 127, File 10: ‘Miscellaneous Department: Correspondence with Merchants, Etc.: Messrs P. Orr & Sons (1880)’. Section 99, Daftar 127, File 12: ‘Correspondence with Merchants: Messrs Deschamp & Co., Bombay’. Section 99, Daftar 127, File 15: ‘Correspondence with Merchants: Correspondence with Chamber of Commerce, Bombay: Photographers’. Section 99, Daftar 128, File 31: ‘Correspondence with Merchants: Miscellaneous Merchants, Photographers’. Section 99, Daftar 128, File 38: ‘Correspondence with Merchants, Etc: P. Orr & Sons (1896–1898)’. Section 99, Daftar 129, File 39: ‘Correspondence with Merchants, Etc: Correspondence with Messrs Tyabji & Co. (1888–1892)’.

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Bibliography Section 100, Daftar 132, File 31: ‘Books: Journal of Indian Art & Industry 1884– 1916’. Section 233, Daftar 345, File 2: ‘Industries: Correspondence Regarding the Manufacture of Pottery’. National Archives of India, New Delhi

Proceedings of the Foreign Department, September 1903. Foreign Department, Files 132–5: Internal, Part B, Simla, 1891: ‘Employment of Mr. C. Giron as Artist, Dec. 1891’. Foreign Department, Diary No. 124-I: Baroda, 1890: Notes and Orders: ‘Employment of Mr. Augusto Felici, 1889–1890’. Department of Revenue and Agriculture: ‘Museums and Exhibitions, 1883–1884’. Foreign Department, File 107: Internal, Part A, July 1885: ‘Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886’. Contemporary Sources

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Bibliography Desai, Govindbhai R.B. 1929. Forty Years in Baroda: Being Reminiscences of Forty Years’ Service in the Baroda State. Baroda: Pustakalaya Sahayak Sahakari Mandal Limited. Diver, Maud. 1943. Royal India: A Descriptive and Historical Study of India’s Fifteen Principal States and their Rulers. London: Hodder & Stoughton Limited. Dutt, R.C. 1907. Baroda Administration Report 1905–06: Compiled Under the Orders of His Highness the Maharaja Gaekwar. Bombay: British India Printing Works. Edwardes, Michael. 1861. A History of India. London: Thames and Hudson. Elliot, F.A.H. 1883. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Volume VII, Baroda, under Government Orders. Bombay: Government Central Press. Fergusson, James. 1845. Illustration of the Rock-Cut Temples of India. London: Weale. ———. 1848. Picturesque Illustrations of Ancient Architecture in Hindostan. London: Hogarth. ———. 1876. History of Indian and Eastern Architecture. London: Murray. Gaekwad, Sayaji Rao. 1927 [1904]. ‘Speech to the National Social Conference’, 30 December, in Speeches and Addresses of His Highness Sayaji Rao III, Maharaja of Baroda, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gaekwar, Sayaji Rao. 2013 [1901]. Notes on the Famine Tour by His Highness the Maharaja Gaekwar. London: Forgotten Books. Grindlay, Captain Robert Melville. 1826. Scenery, Costumes, and Architecture Chiefly on the Western Side of India. London: R. Ackermann/Smith, Elder & Co. Hendley, Thomas H. 1884. Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition, 1883. London: W. Griggs. Jones, Owen. 1982 [1856]. The Grammar of Ornament. New York, Cincinnati, Toronto, London, and Melbourne: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company. Mukharji, T.N. 1888. Art Manufactures of India: Specially Compiled for the Glasgow International Exhibition, 1888. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, India. (p.279) North, Marianne. 1894. Recollections of a Happy Life, Being the Autobiography of Marianne North, Edited by Her Sister, Mrs. John Addington Symonds. New York and London: Macmillan and Co.

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Bibliography Pillai, S.A. 1928. Ravi Varma and His Art. Quilon: S.A. Pillai. Prinsep, Valentine Cameron. 1879. Imperial India: An Artist’s Journals. London: Chapman and Hall Limited. Rice, Stanley. 1931. Life of Sayaji Rao III: Maharaja of Baroda, Vols 1 and 2. London: Oxford University Press. Soares, Anthony X. (ed.). 1933. Speeches and Addresses of Sayaji Rao III, Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda. London, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras: Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford. Madhava Rao, T. 1881. Minor Hints: Lectures Delivered to HH Maharaja Gaekwar, Sayaji Rao III. Bombay: British India Press, available at https:// archive.org/stream/minorhintslectur00madhiala/ minorhintslectur00madhiala_djvu.txt (accessed on 6 February 2015). Tampy, K.P. Padmanabhan. 1934. Ravi Varma: A Monograph. Trivandrum: Kripon and Co. Tottenham, E.L. 1934. Highnesses of Hindostan. London: Grayson and Grayson. ‘Two Scholarships given by Gaekwar’, in Telegram Portland, 13 July 1906. Referred to at Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Archives. Watt, George. 1904. Indian Art at Delhi, 1903: Being the Official Catalogue of the Delhi Exhibition 1902–1903. London: John Murray. Weeden, Edward St. Clair. 1911. A Year with the Gaekwar of Baroda. London: Hutchinson & Co. West, Edward (ed.). 1872. Diary of the Late Rajah of Kolhapoor during His Visit to Europe in 1870. London: Smith, Elder and Co. Yates. W. 1847. Dictionary, Hindustani and English. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press. Artists’ Diaries

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Bibliography Dewan, Deepali. 2003. ‘Scripting South Asia’s Visual Past: The Journal of Indian Art and Industry and the Production of Knowledge in the Late Nineteenth Century’, in Julie Codell (ed.), Imperial Co-Histories: National Identities and the British and Colonial Press. London: Associated University Presses, pp. 29–44. ———. 2004. ‘The Body at Work: Colonial Art Education and the Figure of the Native Craftsman’, in James H. Mills and Satadru Sen (eds), Confronting the Body: The Politics of Physicality in Colonial and Post-Colonial India. London: Anthem Press, pp 118–34. Dirks, Nicholas B. (ed.). 1996. ‘Foreword’, in Bernard Cohn (ed.), Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. ix–xvii. Doshi, Saryu (ed.). 1995. The Royal Bequest: Art Treasures of the Baroda Museum and Picture Gallery. Bombay: India Book House. During, Simon (ed.). 1999. The Cultural Studies Reader. London, New York: Routledge. Durost, Walter Nelson. 1932. Children’s Collecting Activity Related to Social Factors. New York: Bureau of Publications, Teacher’s College, Columbia University. Dutt, Romesh Chunder. 1950a. The Economic History of India in the Victorian Age: From the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the Commencement of the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ———. 1950b. The Economic History of India under Early British Rule: From the Rise of the British Power in 1757, to the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. (p.282) Dutta, Arindam. 2006. The Beauty of Bureaucracy: Design in the Age of Its Global Reproducibility. London: Routledge. Elsner, John and Roger Cardinal (eds). 1994. The Cultures of Collecting. London: Reaktion Books. Feroz ud Din, Moulvi. 2004 [1897]. Rangeen Feroz-ul-Lughat Urdu Jamay. Lahore: Ferozsons. Gaekwad, Fatesinghrao P. 1980. The Palaces of India. London: Collins. Gaekwad, Fatesinghrao P. 1989. Sayaji Rao of Baroda: The Prince and the Man. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar (ed.). 2001. Alternative Modernities. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

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Bibliography Ghosh, Manmohan. 1975. Nandikesvara’s Abhinayadarpanam: A Manual of Gesture and Posture Used in Ancient Indian Dance and Drama. Calcutta: Manisha Granthalaya. Godrej, Pheroza J. 2002. ‘Faces from the Mists of Time’, in Pheroza J. Godrej and Firoza Punthakey-Mistree (eds), Zoroastrian Tapestry: Art, Religion and Culture. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing, pp. 325–48. Greenhalgh, Paul. 1991. Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Guha-Thakurta, Tapati. 1992. The Making of a New ‘Indian Art’: Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal, c. 1850–1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2004. Monuments, Objects, Histories: Institutions of Art in Colonial and Postcolonial India. New York: Columbia University Press. Hardiman, David. 1978. ‘Baroda: The Structure of a “Progressive” State’, in Robin Jeffrey (ed.), People, Princes, and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 107–35. Hoffenberg, Peter. 2001. An Empire on Display: English, Indian, and Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War. California: University of California Press. Jackson, Anna and Amin Jaffer (eds). 2004. Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe, 1500–1800. London, New York: Victoria and Albert Museum, Harry N. Abrams. Jaffer, Amin. 2006. Made for Maharajas: A Design Diary of Princely India. New York: Vendome Press. ———. 2009. ‘Indian Princes and the West’, in Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer (eds), Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, pp. 194–226. Jeffrey, Robin (ed.). 1978. People, Princes, and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. John, Elsner and Cardinal Roger (eds). 1994. The Cultures of Collecting. London: Reaktion Books. (p.283) Kapur, Geeta (ed.). 2000. ‘When was Modernism in Indian Art?’, in When Was Modernism: Essays on Contemporary Cultural Practice in India. New Delhi: Tulika Books. Page 9 of 16

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Bibliography Kooiman, Dick. 2002. Communalism and Indian Princely States: Travancore, Baroda and Hyderabad in the 1930s. New Delhi: Manohar. Kothekara, Santa. 1977. The Gaikwads of Baroda and the East India Company: 1770–1820. Nagpur: Nagpur University. Ladis, Andrew. 2008. Victims and Villains in Vasari’s Lives. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. London, Christopher W. 2015. ‘Cosmopolitanism Articulated: The Evolution of Architecture from Wada to Palace’, in Priya Maholay Jaradi (ed.), Baroda: A Cosmopolitan Provenance in Transition. Bombay: Marg Publications, pp. 46–69. Macaulay, Thomas Babington. 2005. ‘Minute on Indian Education, February 2, 1835’, in Gaurav Desai and Supriya Nair (eds), Postcolonialisms: An Anthology of Cultural Theory and Criticism. New Brunswick and New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, pp. 121–31. Maholay-Jaradi, Priya. 2011. Parsi Portraits from the Studio of Raja Ravi Varma. Bombay: K.R. Cama Oriental Institute. ———. (ed.) 2015. Baroda: A Cosmopolitan Provenance in Transition. Bombay: Marg Publications. Mangharam, Parsram. 2003. Raja Ravi Varma: The Painter Prince 1848–1906. Bangalore: Temple Trees Publications. Markovits, Claude. 2004. A History of Modern India: 1480–1950, Anthem South Asian Studies. London: Anthem Press. Mathur, Saloni. 2007. India by Design: Colonial History and Cultural Display. London: University of California Press. Mayer, Roberta A. 2008. Lockwood de Forest: Furnishing the Gilded Age with a Passion for India. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Press. McGowan, Abigail. 2009. Crafting the Nation in Colonial India. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mehta, R.N. 1995. Genesis and Activities of the Museum and Picture Gallery, Vadodara. Baroda: Department of Museums. Mercer, Kobena. 2005. Cosmopolitan Modernisms. Cambridge, Massachussets: MIT Press. Metcalf, Thomas. 1989. An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain’s Raj. London Boston: Faber and Faber.

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Bibliography ———. 1994. Ideologies of the Raj, The New Cambridge History of India, Vol. III, Part 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Michell, George. 1994. The Royal Palaces of India. London: Thames and Hudson. Miller, Barbara Stoler (ed.). 1992. The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mills, James H. and Satadru Sen (eds). (2004). Confronting the Body: The Politics of Physicality in Colonial and Post-Colonial India. London: Anthem Press. (p.284) Mirzoeff, Nicholas (ed.). 1998. The Visual Culture Reader. London and New York: Routledge. Mitchell, Timothy. 2000. Questions of Modernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mitter, Partha. 1977. Much Maligned Monsters: A History of European Reactions to Indian Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 1994. Art and Nationalism in Colonial India: Occidental Orientations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2007. The Triumph of Modernism: India’s Artists and the Avant-Garde: 1922–47. London: Reaktion Books. Nair, Janaki. 2011. Mysore Modern: Rethinking the Region under Princely Rule. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Pal, Pratapaditya and Vidya Dehejia (eds). 1986. From Merchants to Emperors: British Artists and India, 1757–1930. Ithaca and New York: Cornell University Press. Panikkar K.N. 2007. Colonialism, Culture and Resistance. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Panikkar, Shivaji K., Parul Dave Mukherji, and Deeptha Achar (eds). 2003. Towards a New Art History: Studies in Indian Art. New Delhi: D.K. Printworld. Parimoo, Ratan (ed.). 1998. The Legacy of Raja Ravi Varma: The Painter. Baroda: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum Trust. Parimoo, Ratan and Sandip Sarkar (eds). 2009. The Historical Development of Contemporary Indian Art: 1880–1947. New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi. Pearce, Susan (ed.). 1994. Interpreting Objects and Collections. London and New York: Routledge.

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Bibliography Peleggi, Maurizio. 2002. Lords of Things: The Fashioning of the Siamese Monarchy’s Modern Image. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Pinney, Christopher. 2004. Photos of the Gods: The Printed Image and Political Struggle in India. London: Reaktion Books. Poshyananda, Apinan (ed.). 1996. Contemporary Art in Asia: Traditions/Tensions. New York: Asia Society Galleries. Prakash, Gyan. 1999. Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pratinidhi, Bhavanrao Pant. 1946. Autobiography of Balasaheb: Raja of Aundh. Poona: D.G. Kulkarni Press. Raja, R.P. (ed.). 2002. ‘Ravi Varma: The Unknown’, in Sree Padmanabhan Swamy Temple Renovation Souvenir. Trivandrum: Surrender, pp. 422–3. Ramaswamy, Sumathi (ed.). 2003. Beyond Appearances? Visual Practices and Ideologies in Modern India. New Delhi, California, and London: SAGE Publications. Ramusack, Barbara N. 2004. The New Cambridge History of India: The Indian Princes and Their States, Vol. 3.6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ravi Varma: The Indian Artist. Madras: G.A. Natesan & Co. (p.285) Rizvi, Maulvi Syed Tassadduq Hussain. 2003. Lughat-i-Kishori (FarsiUrdu). Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications. Robb, Peter and David Taylor. 1979. Rule, Protest, Identity: Aspects of Modern South Asia. London: Curzon Press. Roy, Tirthankar. 1999. Traditional Industry in the Economy of Colonial India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2006. The Economic History of India, 1857–1947. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Second edition. Sadwelkar, Baburao. 1989. Story of a Hundred Years: The Bombay Art Society, 1888–1988. Bombay: Bombay Art Society. Said, Edward. 1991 [1978]. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. London and New York: Penguin. Sergeant, Philip W. 1928. The Ruler of Baroda: An Account of the Life and Work of the Maharaja Gaekwar. London: John Murray. Shah, M.H. 1942. Baroda by Decades: 1871–1941. Baroda: M.H. Shah. Page 12 of 16

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Bibliography Sharma, R.C. (ed.). 1993. Raja Ravi Varma: New Perspectives. New Delhi: National Museum. Singh, Kavita. 2009. ‘Material Fantasy: The Museum in Colonial India’, in Gayatri Sinha (ed.), Art and Visual Culture in India: 1857–2007. Bombay: Marg Publications, pp. 40–57. Sinha, Gayatri (ed.). 2009. Art and Visual Culture in India: 1857–2007. Bombay: Marg Publications. ———. (ed.). 1997. ‘The Backdrop’, in Contemporary Art in Baroda. Madras: Tulika Books, pp. 17–51. ———. (ed.) 1997. Contemporary Art in Baroda. Madras: Tulika Books. Stewart, Susan. 2003. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Tarar, Nadeem Omar. 2003. ‘Historical Introduction’, in Nadeem Omar Tarar, Tahir Mahmood, and Samina Choonara (eds), Official Chronicle of Mayo School of Art: Formative Years under J.L. Kipling (1874–94). Lahore: National College of Arts Publications, pp. 21–9. Tillotson, G.H.R. 1989. The Tradition of Indian Architecture: Continuity, Controversy and Change Since 1850. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Tillotson, Giles. 2000. The Artificial Empire: The Indian Landscapes of William Hodges. Surrey: Curzon. Vandal, Pervaiz and Sajida Vandal. 2006. The Raj, Lahore and Bhai Ram Singh. Lahore: National College of Arts. Varma, Marthanda K. 1964. Raja Ravi Varma. Trivandrum: K.M. Varma. Vasudev, Shefalee. 2012. Powder Room. Noida: Random House. Vatsyayan, Kapila. 1974. Indian Classical Dance. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. ———. 1983. The Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts. New Jersey: Humanities Press. Venniyoor, E.M.J. 1981. Raja Ravi Varma. Kerala: Government of Kerala. (p.286) Waltraud, Ernst and Biswamoy Pati (eds). 2007. India’s Princely States: People, Princes, and Colonialism, Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia. London and New York: Routledge. Page 13 of 16

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Bibliography Zitzewitz, Karin. 2014. The Art of Secularism: The Cultural Politics of Modernist Art in Contemporary India. New York: Oxford University Press. Journals and Other Articles

Bhagavan, Manu. 2001. ‘Demystifying the “Ideal Progressive”: Resistance through Mimicked Modernity in Princely Baroda, 1900–1913’, Modern Asian Studies, 35(2): 385–409. ———. 2002. ‘The Rebel Academy: Modernity and the Movement for a University in Princely Baroda, 1908–1949’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 61(3): 919–47. Breckenridge, Carol. 1989. ‘The Aesthetics and Politics of Colonial Collecting’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 31(2): 195–216. Chatterjee, Ramananda. 1907. ‘Ravi Varma’, The Modern Review, (January). Codell, Julie F. 2003. ‘Ironies of Mimicry: The Art Collection of Sayaji Rao III Gaekwad, Maharaja of Baroda, and the Cultural Politics of Early Modern India’, Journal of the History of Collections, 15(1): 127–46. Dehejia, Vidya. 1998. ‘The Very Idea of a Portrait’, Ars Orientalis, 28: 40–8. Delanty, Gerard. 2008. ‘The Cosmopolitan Imagination’, Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, 82/83: 217–30. Dodiya, Anju. 2012. Domus, IndiaAdditions, 1(10). Doshi, Saryu (ed.). 1985. ‘Miniature Painting’, in Maharashtra: Traditions in Art (Marg), XXXVI(4): 49–64. Gupte, B.A. 1886. ‘The Baroda Court’, The Journal of Indian Art and Industry, 1: 126–33. Kaimal, Padma. 2000. ‘The Problem of Portraiture in South India, Circa 90–1000 A.D.’, Artibus Asiae, 60(1): 139–79. Khair, Tabish. 2001. ‘Modernism and Modernity: The Patented Fragments’, Third Text, 15(55): 3–13. Maholay-Jaradi, Priya. 2013 ‘Alternative Modernity: Re-imagining Asia and Africa’, The Newsletter, 66(Winter): 46. Mehta, Makarand. 1992. ‘Science Versus Technology: The Early Years of Kalabhavan, Baroda, 1890–1896’, Indian Journal of History of Science, 27(2): 145–70. Mitter, Partha. 2008. ‘Interventions: Decentering Modernism: Art History and Avant-Garde Art from the Periphery’, The Art Bulletin, 90(4), 531–48. Page 14 of 16

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Bibliography Mobbs, Robert. 1902. ‘A Swiss Painter: Charles Giron’, The Studio. 25(108): 80– 6. Nair, Savithri Preetha. 2005. ‘Native Collecting and Natural Knowledge (1797– 1832): Raja Serfoji II of Tanjore as a “Centre of Calculation”’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 15(3): 279–302. (p.287) Peterson, Indira Viswanathan. 1999. ‘The Cabinet of King Serfoji of Tanjore: A European Collection in Early Nineteenth-Century India’, Journal of the History of Collections, 11(1): 71–93. Pinney, Christopher. 1997. ‘The Nation (Un)Pictured: Chromolithography and “Popular” Politics in India’, Critical Inquiry, 23(3): 834–67. Ravi Varma: The Indian Artist. 1903. Allahabad: Indian Press. Ray, Sugata. 2014. ‘Colonial Frames, “Native” Claims: The Jaipur Economic and Industrial Museum’, The Art Bulletin, 96(2): 196–212. Sachdev, Vibhuti. 2012. ‘Negotiating Modernity in the Princely State of Jaipur’, South Asian Studies, 28(2): 171–81. Sarkar, Tanika. 1992. ‘The Hindu Wife and the Hindu Nation: Domesticity and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal’, Studies in History, 8(2): 213–35. Sinha, Ajay. 2008. ‘Response: Modernism in India: A Short History of a Blush’, The Art Bulletin, 90(4): 561–8. Spear, Jeffrey L. 2008. ‘A South Kensington Gateway from Gwalior to Nowhere’, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500–1900, 48(4): 911–21. Tarapor, Mahrukh. 1980. ‘John Lockwood Kipling and British Art Education in India’, Victorian Studies, 24(1): 53–81. Tarar, Nadeem Omar. 2011. ‘From Primitive Artisans to Modern Craftsmen: Colonialism, Culture, and Art Education in the Late Nineteenth-Century Punjab’, South Asian Studies, 27(2): 199–219. Tillotson, Giles. 2004. ‘The Jaipur Exhibition of 1883’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 14(2): 111–26. Exhibition and Museum Catalogues

Dehejia, Vidya (ed.). 2008. Delight in Design: Indian Silver for the Raj. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing. Dodiya, Anju, Nancy Adajania, and Sharada Dwivedi. 2007. Throne of Frost. Delhi: Bodhi Art.

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Bibliography Goetz, Hermann and Annemarie Goetz. 1961. Catalogue of the Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. Baroda: Maharaja Fatesingh Museum. Jaffer, Amin. 2001. Furniture from British India and Ceylon: A Catalogue of the Collections in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum. London: Victoria and Albert Museum. Maholay, Priya. 2002. Portrait of a Community: Paintings and Photographs of the Parsees. Bombay: Chemould Publications and Arts Trust. Theses and Manuscripts

Maholay, Priya. 2000. Rasa in the Works of Raja Ravi Varma. MA Directed Readings. London: School of Oriental and African Studies. (p.288) Internet Sources

The Academy of Architecture and Architectural Review, available at http:// www.architectural-review.com/about-the-ar/history/ar-history/8603298.article. Industrial Extension Cottage: A Government of Gujarat Organization, India; Craft of Gujarat, available at http://craftofgujarat.com/showpage.aspx? contentid=1. Central Cottage Industries Emporium: Central Cottage Industries Corporation of India Ltd: A Govt. of India Undertaking, Ministry of Textiles, available at http:// www.cottageemporium.in/. India Info Web: Arts and Crafts in Gujarat, available at http:// www.indiainfoweb.com/gujarat/art-crafts/gurjari.html. ‘Patola from Patan Scorches the Ramp’, 12 December 2009, The Times of India, available at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Patola-fromPatan-scorches-the-ramp/articleshow/5328410.cms (accessed on 23 April 2016). Frick Centre for the History of Collecting: The Frick Collection, New York, available at http://www.frick.org/research/center.

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Index

Fashioning a National Art: Baroda's Royal Collection and Art Institutions (1875-1924) Priya Maholay-Jaradi

Print publication date: 2016 Print ISBN-13: 9780199466849 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199466849.001.0001

(p.289) Index Abhinayadarpanam 91, 124n45 absence of verisimilitude in Indian portraiture 69 academic portraiture 64–74, 76, 78–80, 84, 86–90, 97, 99, 101, 116, 119n1, 254 academic-style portraits xxxiii Academy Architecture 110, 127n74 active westernization 23 Adajania, Nancy xxviii aharya abhinaya 124n45 Ahmedabad xxviii Ahmedabad Industrial Exhibition (1902) xlii, 198, 207–9 Sayajirao’s speech at 34–5, 43, 46–7, 49, 145–6, 177 Ahmedabad Wood Carving Company (AWCC) 155–7, 173 Alavoine, Jean-Antoine 165 Alembic Chemical Works 45 Ali, Saadat 23 Amreli 114 Amreli School 42–3 Appadurai, Arjun xxxiv, 87, 179–80 demonstration of objects’ circulation through space and time 62–3 encoding of objects by human agency 63 short-term trajectories 179–80 Archer, Mildred 64–7, 78–9, 136–7 Archer, William George 78–9, 255n2 architects 118, 227, 252 European 24, 110 role of 94 sculptural art facilitation through 102 Architectural Review 110, 127n74 architecture xxlx, 22, 25, 27, 55, 68, 86, 117, 124n38, 230 imperial 24 Indian craftsmanship and design 131 Page 1 of 21

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Index regional schools of 171 vernacular 173, 227 archival citations xliv correspondence 143 data xxxiii, xxxix, 4, 59n13, 63, 134, 165, 192, 198 encounter 244 provincial materials 253 records 171 sources xliii, 11 themes 254–5 archive(s) xxxi, xxxix, 252–5, 253 corporate 163 of orientalism 87 Arcot nawab 23 (p.290) Arjun-Subhadra painting 100 art exhibitions 63 art history of India replete with patron dynasties’ stories xxxvii artillery, gold and silver 19 artisans/artisanal xxxviii, 45, 124n39, 134, 141, 143–4, 153, 157, 159–60, 193, 195, 199, 205, 244, 246–8 adapted Swami pattern 136 agency 169 autonomy 132, 229 bridging of standards 177–81 caste-based/caste-based hereditary 134, 178 classes 99 climate of ‘national’ deprivation 132 communities 170 crafts xxxi, 137 design 133 genres 146 hereditary 48, 149, 209 heritage of Jaipur 149 Indian government’s efforts to promote xxviii native 155, 221, 245, 254 starving 172–3 traditional 129 training of 148 wares 166 art rooms, concept of 169 art school(s) xxxv education 99 native sculptors, trained by 110–13 policy for education and establishment 124n39 stages of 63 art societies 100 Asari, Kochu Kunju 134 Page 2 of 21

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Index Asari, Neelakandan (Neelacunden) 134–6, 138, 177, 193, 230, 247, 257–8 Asher, Frederick xxxvii assimilative tendencies 77 Atmaram, Gokaldas 193 attitude of openness xxxviii Awadh xliv Baccarat 163, 179 Bangkok royal residences 34 Baroda Balcony xxxix, xlii, 169, 171–4, 176, 181, 187n67, 190, 202, 221 Baroda College 37, 52 Baroda College of Science 147 Baroda Committee 220–1, 238n27 Baroda court 20, 37, 39, 59n13, 82, 118, 134, 137, 174, 182n4, 191 artist-in-residence 85 commissioned native portrait artists 69 embroidery and lacework 193–4 exhibition catalogues, remembrance through 216–23 identification and promotion of crafts 191–3 Baroda embroidery and lacework 193–4 Maratha style of portraiture 74 native portrait artists affiliation with provincial schools 80 provincial surveys for exhibition displays 194–8 representative collection 198 revelation of assimilation of European technique 74 royal collection shapes national arts and crafts 232–5 shared objectives 224–32 strategies and negotiations for independent exhibition court/edition, case studies Ahmedabad Industrial Exhibition, 1902 207–9 Chicago World’s Fair, 1893 201–4 Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886 198–201 (p.291) Delhi Durbar Exhibition, 1902–3 204–7 weight of royal objects 209–16 Baroda Durbar 17 Augusto Felici at 103–9 Charles Giron at 70–4 collecting objects from 216 Tiroovengada Naidu at 82–4 Trichinopoly mica painter at 136–8 Baroda Museum 110, 191, 200, 209, 211, 228, 230, 232–3 articles loaned for exhibition 101 and Picture Gallery xl, xxxi, 191, 233 Baroda provenance 191 Baroda School 74 Baroda Screen xxxix, xlii, 169, 171–2, 174, 176, 179, 181, 187n67, 190, 221 Baroda (Vadodara) State xxxii, 41 administration’s sharing of information for exhibition catalogues xlii alternative modernity 160 anklets 204 annual administration reports and gazetteers xl Page 3 of 21

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Index beginning of modernization xxxiv birth as princely state 4–7 continuum of modernity in 25–6 jewels 14 loans’ inventories xlii, 195, 198, 200 local pottery 138–42 maharaja’s consumer habits 33 making and success of arts and crafts xxxviii merchandised genres’ popularity in xxviii modernity xxxviii new localized projects xxxiii projects based in 55 reform projects 1–2 regular participation in industrial exhibitions 247 royalty and bureaucracy 178 scientifically manufactured crafts 161 societal modernization in 56, 133 strategic advances 55 waiting room, rejection of 245 Baroda State Furniture Works 35 Barringer, Tim 248 Bartholomew, Pablo xxix, 254 Baudrillard, Jean xxxvi, 21 idea of mental realm’s extension xxxvii Bengal Renaissance 26, 41 Bengal School 62, 117 Bhabha, Homi xxxv, 170, 180–1, 189n81 Bhagavan, Manu xxxii–xxxiii, 2, 50–2, 54, 61n22, 140, 184n34 Bharati journal 98 Bhavan 184n35 Bhavanrao (the prince of Aundh) 124n42 Bhookan, Moolchand 140, 248 Birdwood, George 132, 167, 182n4, 195, 216–17, 262–3 Bomanji, Pestonjee 122n28, 126n57 Bombay 99, 132–3 Bombay Art Society 100–1 Bombay Art Society Exhibition (1896) 109 Bombay Exhibition (1911) 100 Bombay Furniture Workshop 155 Bombay Presidency gazetteer series 39 Bombay School of Art 98–101, 110, 112, 115, 122n28, 171 Boria, Kavelli Venkata 222 Bose, Fanindranath N. 62, 115–16, 230, 256–7 Boucheron 163 bourgeois modernity recasting in Baroda State crafts and industries, expansion phases 44–6 efforts to improve education 41–4 (p.292) finance and wealth accumulation 46–8 foundational contributions of Madhavarao 36–7 Page 4 of 21

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Index grass-roots-level surveys by Sayajirao 38–40 Sayajirao’s contributions towards Khangi Department 37–8 Brave Hunting Boy of Dhari 114 Breckenridge, Carol xxxiv–xxxv, 56, 191–2, 222–3, 233 British administration/British Raj/colonial regime 50–1, 55 civilizing mission 89 commitment to reform colony 10 cultural alignment with 24 external standards use for scholarship 92 historiography 223 knowledge production by 192 Madhavarao’s leanings towards 58n5 princely options under 3–4 return for princes’ loyalty to 58n3 British Arts and Crafts and Design Reform movements 127n74, 131 British East India Company 5, 64, 67 British Empire Exhibition 213 British portraitists 65–6 bronze sculptures 31, 104, 107–8, 110–12, 114–16, 119n5, 224, 230, 246 Brown, Rebecca xxxiii, 130, 187n68 Brunner, E.F. Sass 16 Budhwarkar, Ramchandra Janaradhan 140 Cabral, Amilcar 59n8 Calcutta 10, 45, 66, 99, 101, 132–3 Calcutta Industrial Exhibition (1906) 47–8 Calcutta International Exhibition of 1883 89, 216, 220, 223 calico printing 177 Cama, Madame 51–2 Cardinal, Roger xxxvi, 21, 250–1 Cartier 16, 163 Casanova Institute at Naples 42 Cashmere xliv Central Cottage Industries Emporium, Delhi xxviii Centre Pompidou (1989), Paris 167 Chakrabarty, Dipesh xxxiii, xlvn6, 130, 141, 166, 186n63, 187n63, 245 Chamber of Commerce, Bombay 193 Chandra, Bankim 161 Chand, Rama Chand Mul 213 Chatterjee, Partha xxxiii, xxxiv, 40, 45, 56, 61n22, 142, 154, 161 Chatterjee, Ramananda 98 Chaturbhuj, Zaveri Vithaldas 113 Chawla, Rupika xxvii chemical technology 177 Chicago Exposition Certificate 88–9 Chicago Exposition of 1893 xlii, 88, 174, 201–4, 213, 222–3 Chimnabai Women’s Industrial Home 43 Chinnery, George 66, 94 Chinubhai, Sardar Sir 113 Chisholm, Robert 24–5 Page 5 of 21

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Index Chitpavan Brahmins 52–3 Chitralakshana 124n45 Chitra-o-Kavya (Balendranath Tagore) 98 Chiu, Melissa 125n47 Chola goddess sculpture 119n5 Chola queen 119n5 City and Guilds of London Institute 178 close coterie, concept of 11–12 Codell, Julie F. xxxi–xxxiii, xxxvi, 2, 4, 14, 33, 94, 101, 115, 230, 241n74, 251 interpretation of Sayajirao’s multiple personality xxxvi, 2 native agent xxxv Cohn, Bernard xxxv, 39, 190–2, 204, 221, 233 (p.293) Cole, Henry 139, 181n2 Colin Mackenzie’s Mysore Survey (1799–1809) 222 collection of art 63 Colonial and Indian Exhibition (1886), London xlii, xxviii, 173, 198–201, 218 colonial exhibitions xxx–xxxi, xxxiv native agent’s display xxxv colonial institutions xxxiii, xxxiv colonialism xl, xlvn6, 3, 50 colonial modernity 10, 37, 40 colonial-Western reference frame 56 Columbia University, New York 42 Commission of Howdah for Messrs Deschamp & Co., Bombay, 1887 164–6 Commission of Tea Service for Messrs P. Orr & Sons, Madras, 1875 166–7 Commission of Walking Stick for Messrs P. Orr & Sons, Madras, 1880 163–4 Company School of painting 64, 66, 86, 115, 137, 182n13 Constant, Benjamin 95–6 contemporary art of India xxviii coolies xx, 157 Coomaraswamy, Ananda 132 Copland, Ian 3, 7–8, 11, 37, 51, 53 analyses of pre-1857 period 9 dewan as main durbari official 60n13 cosmopolitanism xxvii, xxxviii, xliii, xlv, 54, 59n12, 62, 78, 93, 117–18, 191, 228–9, 247– 50 cosmopolitan leaning 78, 121n20 craft(s) (see also Artisans; Baroda court; Baroda Durbar; Lakshmi Vilas Palace, Baroda) alternative experiments 160 Britain turning to Indian crafts 178–9 commissions xxxix experiments in palace, case studies Baroda pottery, local 138–42 mica painter from Trichinopoly 136–8 Neelakandan Asari 134–6 genres qualified as representative 263–4 Indian vs British manufacturers at Great Exhibition of 1851 130–3 local model for technical education 145–55 modernization through scientific and technical education, case studies 142–5 Page 6 of 21

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Index Nazarpaga Workshop 156–8 placement of 177 production 160 craft promotion projects 159 rural crafts’ relocation in regional patterns of industrialization 206 State Furniture Works 158–9 traditional crafts’ promotion of 249 craftsmen xxviii, 82, 129, 180, 195, 221, 246 (see also Artisans; Baroda court; Baroda Durbar; Lakshmi Vilas Palace, Baroda) autonomous position of Jaipur 159–60 caste-based guilds 181n3 hereditary 48–9 native 133, 180, 189n81 at polytechnics, workshops, and industry 130–61 Madhavarao’s active engagement with 37 exchange between apprentices and 42 cultural biography of things 63 Cutch Exhibition Committee of 1884 89, 203 Deccani Brahmins 53 decorative sculpture 112 de Forest, Lockewood 155–6 (p.294) Dehejia, Vidya 69, 155, 159, 162, 166, 182n13, 119n3, n5, 194 deindustrialization 146 Delanty, Gerard xxxviii, 191 Delhi Durbar 1902–3 xlii, 16, 52, 113 Delhi Durbar Exhibition (1902–3) xxviii, 169, 173–4, 194, 198, 204–7 Delhi Durbar incident (1911) 52, 54 Department of Science and Art (DSA), Britain 131, 139, 147 Desai, Ambalal Sakarlal 238n27 Desai, Govindbhai 37–9, 48, 60n14 designs of India, internationalization bridging artisanal and scientific standards 177–81 contribution to native and European capital 161–3 Commission of Howdah for Messrs Deschamp & Co., Bombay, 1887 164–6 Commission of Tea Service for Messrs P. Orr & Sons, Madras, 1875 166–7 Commission of Walking Stick for Messrs P. Orr & Sons, Madras, 1880 163– 4 stylistic purity myth and hybrid invention 167–9 facades of authenticity 167–9 Dhamnaskar, R.V. xliii Dhurandhar, M.V. 122n28 Diamond Jubilee Cottage Industries xxxix Dirks, Nicholas xxxv, 192, 221–3 display of material objects xxxvii Diver, Maud 12 divine portraits 69 Dix, Arthur J. 224 Dodiya, Anju xxviii–xxx, xlivn4, 234, 253–4 Doshi, Saryu 74–5, 115, 121n19 Page 7 of 21

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Index dual alienation, concept of 10, 26, 59n8 dual critical engagement xxxv Durbar Hall of Lakshmi Vilas Palace xxviii–xxix, xl, 26, 33 bromide painting of 31–2 wooden balconies on western side of 104 Durost, Walter xxxv, 2, 26, 73, 121n18 Dussehra procession 165, 212, 230 Dutta, Arindam 130–3 Dutt, R.C. 49, 51, 132, 146, 148, 150, 153 Dwivedi, Sharada xxviii East India Art Manufacturing Company 171 East India Company 5, 64 East–West synthesis 1 eclecticism 97 Economic History of India (R.C. Dutt) 146 education, Sayajirao’s contributions to 41–4 Elliot, F.A.H. 7–9, 11, 13, 38–9, 60n13, 70, 118 Empire of India Exhibition of 1924 xxxix English–Indian hybrid lifestyles 22 English–Indian political indoctrination 1 English Royal Academy 119n1 Euro-American industrialization 154 Euro-Indian objects 24–34 European artists, Sayajirao’s engagement with xxxiii European art practices xxxv–xxxvi European capital 161–3, 166, 179–80, 186n63, 250 European engineers 180, 248 Europeanization of domestic space of India 68 European modern xxxiii European naturalism or realism 119n1 (p.295) European painting and sculpture, reconfiguration of xxxiv European portrait 79 European portraitists 65–9, 78, 80 European science 161 European sculptors 102–10 European-style buildings 24 exhibition(s) budgetary constraints 216 catalogues 63, 216–23 colonial apparatuses of 249 colonial, practical apparatus 191 loans’s inventory for 191 national displays 194 exotic raja 14 experiments in a continuum, adaptation and localization xxxv Exposition Universelle, Paris in 1878 165 in 1900 113 Fakir 109, 127n70 Page 8 of 21

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Index factory-style production 159 fashion show xxviii Fatesingh Museum xl Felici, Augusto 62, 103–9, 230, 256 Fillion, F.A. 94, 103–4, 118, 227 Fine Arts Exhibition, Poona in 1878 82, 134, 137 in 1881 82 Flaxman, John 102 Flynn, Tom 248 Gadgil, J.S. 8 Gadgil, Rao Bahadur J.S. 238n27 Gaekwad, Damajirao 5 Gaekwad, Fatesinghrao P. 52–3 Gaekwad, Ganpatrao 5 Gaekwad, Gopalrao 7 Gaekwad, Kashirao 82–3 Gaekwad, Pilajirao 5, 75–6 Gaekwad, Sampatrao 232 Gaekwad’s Baroda State Railway Workshop 43 Gaekwad, etymological root of 57n1 Gaekwad family, Baroda 2, 5 Varma’s private collection, paintings of xxviii Gajjar, T.K. 45, 147, 149, 194 Gaonkar, Dilip Parameshwar xxxviii, 36, 43, 129, 160–1, 245–6 generic portraits 69 Genocchio, Benjamin 125n47 genre history 62 ghankaries (oil pressers) 157 Ghose, Aurobindo 51–2 Giron, Charles 70–4, 101, 103, 120n13, 121n17, 246, 253, 256 Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888 222 global elite, prestige goods and membership to 22–4 globalization 57, 168 global pluralism 167 Gobelins Tapestry Factory 42 Goetz, Annemarie 230 Goetz, Hermann 230 Gokhale, Gopal Krishna 51 Gold Gun, The 20 gold mohurs 18 Great Exhibition of 1851 130–4, 162 Greek pantheon 165 Griffiths, John 112, 140, 171, 216, 223 Grindlay, Robert Melville 64–5 Guha-Thakurta, Tapati xxxv, 191, 220, 227–8, 233, 236n11, 246 Gujarati Dancing Girl (Augusto Felici) 104–5 Gupte, B.A. 174, 217, 220 Guzerati Lady (Tiroovengada Naidu) 84 Page 9 of 21

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Index Gwalior 14, 41, 188n73 Gwalior Gateway 171–3 handicrafts xxxix, 43, 167, 217, 235 Indian government’s efforts to promote xxviii (p.296) Havell, E.B. 137 Hendley, Thomas Holbein 167 Hindu patriotism 52 House of Patiala 16 howdah xlii, 179, 230 human agency 63, 205–6, 252–5, xxxvii Humphrey, Ozias 66 Hussain, M.F. 97–8 Hutheesing, Muggunbhai 155 Huzur Cutchery of Baroda 11–12, 38, 72–3, 153, 199 Huzur Office 11–12, 190, 198, 200–1, 238n27 hybrid goods work, invention of 167–77 hybridity 22, 168, 170, 176, 181, 255 hybrid lifestyle 31 Hyderabad 14, 41, 69 Imperial Institute, London 42 Indian Artist Copying a European Portrait, An (W.G. Archer and Mildred Archer) 78 Indian Cheetah Tamer (Augusto Felici) 104, 107, 109, 127n70, 136, 230 Indian Craftsman, The 132 Indian National Congress 40, 51, 53, 146, 247 Indianness 98, 187n68 indigenous crafts xxvii, xxx, xli, 36, 42, 133, 177, 205, 248, 254 indigenous institutions 10 indigenous performing arts 92, 97 individual history of artworks 62 Indore 7, 36 Indo-Saracenic 23 architecture xxxii building 229 Industrial Arts of India, The (1880) survey 132, 262–3 Industrial Cottage Extension Project xxviii industrialism 45–6 industrialization process 44, 48, 132–3, 196–7 Industrial Revolution 80 industrial-school pedagogy 154 inter-ocularity or inter-visual field 78–80 interstitial zone of images and practices 88 investigative modality 39, 192, 194 Italian Renaissance 103 Jackson, F.H. 238n27 Jaffer, Amin 16, 23–4, 42, 68, 130, 163, 165 Jagannath, Rao Bahadur Lakshman 103, 220, 221, 238n27 Jaipur Economic and Industrial Museum 149 Jaipur Exhibition 159 Jaipur School of Art 149, 159, 186n53 Page 10 of 21

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Index Jamasji, Sorabji 220 Jaya Mahal Palace, Bombay 158 Jeevatram, Anirudha, 140–1, 246, 248, 253 Jehangir, Pestonji 8 J.J. School of Art 216 Jodhpur 41 John, Elsner xxxvi, 21, 250–1 Jones, Owen 181n2 Joshi, Vyankatesh 7 Journal of Indian Art and Industry, The ( JIAI ) 174, 217, 221 Judith (Benjamin Constant) 95–6 justificatory structure 142 Kaimal, Padma 69 Kakuzō, Okakura 128n77 Kalabhavan–Nazarpaga at colonial exhibitions, award-winning items 260–1 Kalabhavan polytechnic xxxi, xxxix, xlii, 44–5, 50, 142, 146–50, 152–5, 157, 171, 177, 184n29, 208–9, 229, 244 (p.297) Kalaghoda 110–12 Kansaras (coppersmiths) of Visnagar 48–9 Kapur, Geeta 97–8, 168, 244 Karmarkar, V.P. 114 Kashmir xliv, 14 Kathakali 91–2, 124n45, 125n46, 247 Kauns-Shakti painting 100 Kazi Shahabudin Sar Subha 8 Keith, J.B. 171 Kelkar, Raghunath (Dewan) 140 Keshav Mistry 169, 173, 175–6, 221, 246, 248 Kettle, Tilly 66 Khan, Aga 54 Khangi Department 37–8 Khangi Javerkhana 230 khangi karbhari 59–60n13 Khareghat, Aloo 122n32 Khera, Dipti 155, 159, 166–7, 179 King Edward VII 19 Kipling, John Lockwood 112, 139, 149, 167, 188n69 Kirtane, V.J. 8 Kishore, Hira 140, 248 Kooiman, Dick xxxi, 5, 44–5, 51, 53, 57n1, 58n3 Kota 41 Krishnamachary, V.T. 52 Krishnavarma 51–2 Lady with a Water Pot, A (Augusto Felici) 104, 108 Lahore 99, 132 Lakme India Fashion Week in 2008 xxviii in 2009 xxviii in 2011 xxviii Page 11 of 21

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Index lakshana 91 Lakshmi Vilas Palace, Baroda xxxiv, xxxii, xxviii–xxx, 8, 40, 82, 104, 158, 168, 224, 227– 9 (see also Baroda court; Baroda Durbar) architecture 22 dual affiliations at xxxv European works in 93 local consumption in 24–34 portico of 106, 109 royal collection shapes national arts and crafts 232–5 sitting room 226 Lalkaka, Jehangir 126n57 Lal, Rai Bahadur Kanhiya 176 Latour, Bruno 128n78 Laxmi painting 101 L’Ecole Municipale D’Horlogerie, Genève 42 Livingstone National Bazar 193 localization 49, 75, 102 local pottery at Baroda, efforts to improve 138–42 lotas 48 Lynn, G.R. 173 Lyotard, Jean-François 248 Mackenzie, Colin 222–3 Madhavarao, Tanjorkar (Dewan) xxxiii, xxxix, xlii, 1, 7, 13, 21–2, 48, 56, 69–70, 118, 129, 134, 166, 168, 177, 203–4 assistance to cause of education 41 early interest in local craft identification 192–3 efforts to improve local Baroda crafts 137–8 foundational contribution towards Baroda state modernity 36–7 invitation to native workman from Lucknow 138–9 invitation to Varma for Sayajirao investiture 86 memorandum 8 Neelacunden, private employ of 134–6 notes on statecraft 46–7 pro-colonial approach 8 state-sponsored pottery programme, first 157–8 (p.298) Madras 99, 132 Madras Presidency 82 Madras School, Lahore 133 Magazine of Art 113 Mahabharata 90 Maharaja Fatesingh Museum 101, 104, 228, 230 Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner 102, 104 Maharaja Holkar 134–6 Maharaja of Kapurthala 16 Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda xxxi, xlvn9 Maharaja Serfoji II of Tanjore 128n78 Maharani Chimnabai xxxviii–xxxix, xlvn12 Mahatma Gandhi xl, 54 Maholay-Jaradi, Priya xxxii, xlvn5, n9, n10, 59n12, 61n24, 67, 70, 180 Page 12 of 21

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Index Mahratta Lady (Tiroovengada Naidu) 84 Makarpura Palace 15, 158 Malharrao 7, 19 Mandodari 97 Mangharam, Parsram 123n35 Manibhai, Dewan 208 Manipravalam 91 Mant, Charles 24, 163 Maratha Brahmins 41 Maratha Confederacy 57n2 Maratha dynasty 57n2 Maratha School 121n19 Maratha–Tanjore style of oil painting 74 marble sculptures xlivn4, 101, 104, 106, 211, 246 Mayo School of Arts, Lahore 133, 139, 141, 188n69, 248 McGowan, Abigail 130, 132–3, 142–3, 155–6, 189n79, 194–5, 207 Mehta, Makarand 146–7 Mehta, Pherozeshah 52 Melvill, Philip S. 69 Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition (Maharaja Madho Singh) 221 Messrs Charles Forbes & Co. 193 metropolitan industrialization 133 modernity xxxiii Mhatre, Ganpatrao Kashinath 112–15 mica painting of Trichinopoly 136–8 Millet, Jean Francois 115 Minor Hints 58n5 mistris 149 Mitchell, Timothy 130, xxxiii Mitter, Partha xl, 87, 90, 92, 94, 98, 100, 102, 109–10, 112–13, 115, 117, 122n28, 124n38, 125n49, 128n77, 131–2, 139, 167, 181n2, 182n3, 245, 255n, 258 modernism/modernity/modernization 255n1, xxxi–xxxii, xxxvi alternative modernity xxvii, 43, 47, 118, 244–6 bourgeois 36 colonial 37, 229 cultural 129, 178, 245, 247 Euro-American 130 metropolitan xxxiii Mysore xxxiv political 38 societal 36, 129–30, 245 Western Enlightenment standards of 56 modernized elite 24 modern nationalism 24 Mohini and Rukmangada 125n48 Morley, John 49 Morley–Minto Reforms of 1909 59n7 Morris, William 132, 167 Page 13 of 21

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Index mosaic ceiling xlivn4 Motibag palace 94 Mughal dominion, political decentralization of 206 Mukharji, T.N. 222 Mukherjee, Sabyasachi xxviii (p.299) Municipal School of Technology, Manchester 42 Munshi, K.M. 144–5 museum(s) xliii, 47, 114, 118, 130, 203, 217, 223–32 catalogues xxxix knowledge, based on 128n78 provincial 138, 194–5, 208 Museum of Islamic Art, Doha 21 Museum of Ornamental Art, Marlborough House 139 Mysore 38, 41 eschewing oil portraits 78–9 monarchy 187n68 Mysore Survey 222–3 nabobs 66–7 Naidu, Tiroovengada xli, 80, 82–4, 89, 115, 118, 134, 138, 203, 246 Nair Girl Tuning a Fiddle, A (Raja Ravi Varma) 82 Nair, Janaki 1, 187n68, xxxiv Nair Lady at Her Toilet (Raja Ravi Varma) 85 Naoroji, Dadabhai 52, 132 National Archives of India, New Delhi xl national art xxxv National Council of Women xlvn12 National Gallery of Modern Art, Bombay xxviii national heritage xxvii–xxviii national identity xxxviii nationalism xxvii, xxxi, xxxviii, 50, 57, 133, 162, 246–7 cultural 161 denial of alleged inferiority of colonized people 40 different discourse 154 Sayajirao’s crusade for 53, 180 Nationalist Press 51, 53 National Museum, New Delhi revision of policy xxvii–xxviii National Social Conference of the Indian National Congress (1904) 39–40, 50 national treasures xxx national welfare 54 native arts xxxv native artisans 155, 177, 221, 245, 254 native artists 31, 34, 75, 78, 80–2, 84, 87–9, 98, 123n37, 205, 250 display procedures 119 education of 101, 118 native informants 222–3 native portraitists 64, 68–9 native prince 24 Native Science College of Baroda 138 Page 14 of 21

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Index Natyashastra 124n45 nawabs 14, 23, 42, 66, 194 nayika 91 Nazarbag Palace 14–16, 19, 94 Nazarpaga Workshops 152–9, 184n29 new art paradigm xxxi North, Marianne xl, 20, 186n61, 213 nowganies 157, 185n51 occidental orientations 92 oil paintings collection academic portraiture and European artists in colony 64–5 Charles Giron at Baroda Durbar 70–4 ideas of prestige consumption and scientific precision 65–9 meeting of Valentine Cameron Prinsep with Sayajirao 69–70 art school-trained native portraitists as advisors 98–101 Samuel Fyzee Rahamin 100–1 early native portraitists and Maratha–European style 74 Pilajirao Gaekwad’s portrait 75, 77 Sayajirao Gaekwad II’s portrait 75–80 (p.300) self-taught native artists and portraiture expansion 80–2 fieldwork and documentation of Varma’s genre subjects 86–90 frame of reference, widening of 93–7 mythological paintings by Raja Varma 90–3 national high art reception 97–8 Raja Ravi Varma at Baroda Durbar 84–6 Tiroovengada Naidu at Baroda Durbar 82–4 Olympia (Édouard Manet) 97 Oomersee Mawjee silversmiths 159 orientalism xxxv, 87, 128n77, 131 colonial discourse of xxxiii pan-Asian 117, 252 Osler & Co. 163 Oudh xliv, 23, 66, 69 painting school 126n51 Pal, Bipin Chandra 51 Pandit, Keshavrao 7 Panikkar, K.N. xxxv, 2, 10, 41, 59n8, 160–11 Paris exhibition 1878 195 Paris Exposition of 1900 34, 227 Parlett, Graham 64, 136–7 Part of Hindoo Temple at Baroda (Thomas Postans) 214 passive westernization 23 Patan patola xxx Gujarati bridal trousseau xxviii Patan potters 140, 169, 199–200, 202, 248 Patel, Narasinhbhai 51 Patiala 41 patola weavers xlivn3 Page 15 of 21

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Index Pattan pottery 199 Pearce, Susan xxxv, xxxv–xxxvi, 2, 26, 63, 118, 205–6 pearl carpet 20–2 Peleggi, Maurizio xxxiv, 2, 22, 24, 32–3, 35, 56, 67, 102 People of India 123n36 period room 68, 169, 191, 227–8, 234 Perozeshaw Pottery Works, Bombay 139 Peshwas 5, 57n2 Peterson, Indira 128n78 Pigeon House xxxix, 169, 173–5, 181, 190, 221–2, 246 Pinney, Christopher 78, 84, 92, 123n36, 164, 166 Pithawala, M.F. 122n28, 126n57 polytechnics xxx, xxxiv, xliii, 169 (see also technical education) craftsmen at 130–61 mechanized xxxviii Poona Exhibition Committee of 1888 174, 222 Poona Exhibition of Native Arts and Manufactures, 1883 193 Portrait of His Highness Maharaja Saheb 100 Portrait of Prince Shivaji Rao 100 Portrait of Shrimant Sampat Rao 100 Portrait of Sir Elliot (Tiroovengada Naidu) 82 Portrait of the Late Prince 100 post-Enlightenment colonial justificatory structures 56 European knowledge 162 European Science 161 ideas xxxiii, 154 knowledge systems 154 practices and institutions 40 rationalism 154 standard of scientific processes of production 142 universal standard of science 177 Poverty 97 Prabasi journal 98 practitioners of national repute xxx Prakash, Gyan xxxiii, xxxiv, 40, 89, 142, 154 (p.301) Prendergast, Harry 103 Preparation for a Suttee/The Immolation of a Hindoo Widow (Captain R.M. Grindlay) 214 princely state(s) of India 3–4, 7, 14, 23, 36, 47, 54–5, 61n22, xl, xxx–xxxi Prinsep, Valentine Cameron xl, 69–71, 73, 230, 259 private royal consumption practice xxxiv Provincial Art-Ware Courts 171 provincial surveys 195, 236n11 Public Works Department (PWD) 37, 112, 156, 159, 170, 190, 246 puranic pictures 90 purity, notion of 170 Radha-Krishna painting 100

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Index Rahamin, Samuel Fyzee 230, 258–9 (see also under art school-trained native portraitists as advisors) Rajaram prince 8 Rajkumar College 8 Ramachandran, A. xxvii Ramaswamy, Sumathi 78 Ram, Rai Bahadur Ganga 176 Ramusack, Barbara 3–4, 7, 14, 37–8, 52, 57n2, 58n3, 120n15, 128n75, 188n73, 197, 203, 223, 239n43 Ranade, M.G. 51 Ranjitsinhji Jam Saheb of Nawanagar 110 rasa 91 Reclining Nair Woman 97 Redgrave, Richard 181n2 referencing standard sets/collections 139 regional surveys 236n11 Report of the Baroda University Commission (RBUC) 1927 144–5 Resolution for Museums and Exhibitions (1884) 195 revivalism 93, 117, 159–61 Reynolds, Playford 174, 187n67, 238n27 Rice, Stanley xxxi, 7, 32, 37–8, 41, 44–6, 51, 53–4, 58n6, 61n25 Royal Academy 100 Royal Scottish Academy 257 Roy, Ram Mohan 132 Roy, Tirthankar 159, 188n73, 206 royalty’s assimilation of European practice, phases of 22–3 rural India, modernists idolized xl Rustomji, Cursetji 8 Sachdev, Vibhuti 199 Sadhana journal 98 Sadler, Hayes 173, 199–200, 238n27 Said, Edward xxxiii, 67, 197 salon sculptures collection art school-trained native sculptors 110–13 Fanindranath Bose 115–16 Ganpatrao Kashinath Mhatre 113–14 European sculptors at Baroda, case studies Augusto Felici 103–9 Derwent Wood 110 link between ideas, artworks, acquisitions and display 116–19 royal residences and public spaces, sculptures for 101–2 Salvi, Hetal xlivn3 sanads 5–6, 58n3 Sankheda baby cradle xxviii Sankheda furniture xxviii Sankheda lacquerware xxviii, xxx, 234 Sarkar, Tanika 61n22, 91, 124n45, 125n46, n48 Sarkarwada Palace, old 7, 14 Satyanarayana, B.R. 188n73 Page 17 of 21

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Index Sayajirao Gaekwad III (Maharaja) xxvii, xxx, 1–2, 5, 7, 48, 71, 92, 123n37, 129, 136, 165, 168, 195, 210–11, 244 (p.302) art patronage activities xl awareness of informal and formal contexts 118 Valentine Prinsep’s meeting at Navsari with 69–70 close circle and Huzur Cutchery 11–12 collecting, case studies on 250–2 colonial import of xxxiii consumer habits, adoption of 33 crafts and industry, contribution towards 44–6 cultural and national consciousness 55–6 eminence in arena of modernization xxxi engagement with artists xxx equestrian statue 111 extended idea over art genres xxxvii interested in narrative-style European history 94 as a lender of Baroda arts and crafts xxx minority education of 7–11, 26 as a moderate or radical nationalist xxxi nationalist and a dissenter 49–54 network 118–19 orientation towards composite ideologies 2 paradigm of international collecting 118 portrait of 75–80 private consumption/collection practices xxxvi, xl, 35, 63–4, 81, 179, 233, 235 project of nationalism 57 published photographic album of Dabhoi site 203 referencing of European and American models 55 revisiting of swadesh-ism points 246 role as collector and head of state xxx, 119, 190 roles as a private elite consumer 35 royal resources for private collection, use of 12–14 pearl carpet 20–2 royal jewels 14–17 royal pageantry items 17–20 sociocultural reforms, support for 41 surveys conducted at grass-root level by 38–40 as tastemaker and value arbiter 119 travel to Europe 59n13 visual art traditions, consumption of 64 willingness and ability to mediate European and indigenous traditions xxxii Scenery, Costumes, and Architecture Chiefly on the Western Side of India (Captain R.M. Grindlay) 65, 214 scientific processes of production 142 scientific superiority 43 sculpture(s) (see also salon sculptures collection) bronze 31, 246 historical development of 63 marble xlivn4, 246 Page 18 of 21

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Index self-taught native artists 80–2 Sembiyan Mahadevi 119n5 Semper, Gottfried 181n2 Sergeant, Philip xxxi–xxxii, xlvn12, 5, 7–8, 12, 14, 19, 50, 57n1, 61n25 series, concept of 73 Sevres Royal Porcelain Factory 42 Shah, M.H. 44–5, 243n92 Shakuntala Writing Love Letter (Raja Ravi Varma) Shakuntala Writing to Dushyanta (Raja Ravi Varma) 85, 90, 122n30 Sheikh, Gulammohammed xxxii shikar damni (hunting carriage) 201 (p.303) Shivaji Memorial Park, Poona 113 Shuja-ud-Daula (nawab of Oudh) 66 Siamese monarchy’s projection of modern image xxxiv Siamese royalty 34 Simla Fine Arts Exhibition, 1879 193, 203 Simon, C.P. 188n73 Singh, Bhai Ram 141, 176, 188n69 Sinha, Ajay 54 Sir J.J. School of Arts, Bombay 143 Sita Bhoopravesham (Raja Ravi Varma) 85, 90 S.J. Tellery & Co. 201–2, 223 Smith, Charles 66 social history of things 63 social life of things, categories of 62 societal modernization 36 Spielmann, M.H. 52 Sree Krishna and Yesoda (Tiroovengada Naidu) 82, 84, 90 Sri Chitra Art Gallery, Trivandrum 125n48 sringara (erotic mood) 91 State Furniture Works xlii, 35, 57, 144, 155, 158–9, 177, 180, 224 Stewart, Susan xxxvi, 21, 206, 250 subha (in-charge of a division) 140 Suthars caste 147, 149 swadeshi-ism 45, 54 swadeshi movement 53 Swami Tea Service 166–7, 179 swaris 38–9, 192 Tagore, Abanindranath 62, 117, 128n77 Tagore, Balendranath 98 tahsildars 194 Tait, T.S. 238n27 Taleb, Mirza Abu 60n15 Taleyarkhan, Dinshah Ardeshir 201, 238n27 Talim, B.V. 112 Tamhane, A.H. 8 Tamil Lady Playing on a Sarabat (Raja Ravi Varma) 85 Tanjore Dancing Girl 104, 109, 127n70, 230 Tanjore mica painting 78 Page 19 of 21

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Index Tarar, Nadeem 157 Tata, J.N. 150 Tata Mills, Nagpur 45 technical education or science 177 Baroda’s practitioners and craft genres 129 and commercial enterprises, link between 45 indigenization of 154 influence on the formulation of cultural nationalism 161 to modernize crafts 142–5 Sayajirao’s research in Europe and America 42 scholarships in 141 workshops on 43 technological and organizational changes in traditional industry 159 Thai monarchy 33 thalis 48 Thanawalla, C.R. 8 Thirunal, Swati 91 Throne of Frost exhibition xxviii–xxix Thullal art 91, 124n45, 125n46, 247 Tilak, Bal Gangadhar 51 Tillotson, Giles xxxii, 23–5, 119n2, 149, 159, 186n53, 205, 221, 229 Tipu Sultan xlvn7 transnational elite 2 Travancore 7, 36, 38, 41, 80, 82, 216 Trichinopoly Exports (1850) 137 Tripole, Lorenzo 103 Tukojirao Holkar II of Indore 16 Tyabjee & Co., Bombay 103 Tyabji, Abbas 238n27 Udaipur 41 Ugarchand, Shivalal 209, 211, 246 (p.304) universal science 154 University of London 144 upadhyaya (family preceptor) 7, 58n4 urban capitalism xl Vadodara Zilla Udyog District Industries Centre xxxix Van Cleef and Arpels 163 Varma, C. Raja Raja xl, 16, 19, 86 Varma, Raja Ravi xxvii–xxx, xli, 39, 62, 77, 79–82, 115, 118, 134, 194, 203, 229–30, 234, 258 awards for genre subjects paintings 122n33 at Baroda Durbar 84–6 details in diaries of brother’s visits in palaces 94 engagement with Kathakali and Thullal 125n46 fieldwork and documentation of diverse Indian types 86–90 mythological lithographs 166, 224, 244 mythological paintings by 90–3 vernacular 62, 190, 248 architectural traditions 149, 173 Page 20 of 21

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Index architecture 227 artistic woodwork 26–7 crafts xliii education department 37 Indian design 249 -Indic architectural patterns 24 portfolios of artisanal design at colonial exhibitions 163, 170 residential spaces, decoration of 74 woodwork 177 Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (VJTI) 150–3, 178, 247 Victory of Indrajit 91, 95 View of the Vishwamitri River Bridge, Baroda, A (Captain R.M. Grindlay) 214 Vishnudharmottaram 124n45 Vishwamitri River Bridge, Baroda 215 Vithal, Rao Bahadur Raoji 238n27 Vizianagaram 216 wadas 74 Walker, Alexander 7 Watt, George 169, 173–4, 204–5, 209, 213, 259, 265–9 Weeden, Edward Clair 12, 14, 17, 19, 21, 27, 31, 107–9 Western/European modernity xxxi Western framework of knowledge 154 Western genres xxxv Western industrialism 45 westernization process 10 types of 23 Western modes of consumption 34 Western sociocultural practices 67 Widows’ Remarriage Act 41 Wodeyar, Chamarajendra 79 Wodeyar maharajas 78–9 Woman with a Pitcher 115–16 wood carvings 202 Wood, Derwent Francis 110, 257 World’s Columbian Commission Award 1893 123n35 World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893 201 Wyatt, Digby 181n2

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