Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh ji II of Jaipur in his Photo Studio, Jaipur A charming image of the maharaja with his pet dogs against a library backdrop and furniture both known to have been his. An assistant holds the curtain steady at right. Backdrops and props in both paintings and photographs were meant to communicate something about the sitter, in this case erudition. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a renaissance in princely India. Notable figures brought new energy to their role as leaders and protectors of their people – reform, modernization and improvement were the mantras, espoused and delivered with zeal and dedication. It was also a rapidly changing world with industrialization and the invention of new technologies, especially those related to communication; the close – albeit sometimes enforced – contact with Europe and the rest of the world through it, was an enormous stimulus. Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II of Jaipur (b. 1833, r. 1835-1880) was born at the beginning of these changing times in an atmosphere where felicitous outcomes were far from certain. He was declared the Maharaja of Jaipur when he was less than two years old, ushering in a minority government close on the heels of his father’s (Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh III b. 1819, r. 1819-1835). Inaugurated by a tussle for power between his late father’s scheming ministers, the Queen Mother, and competing factions of thakurs, the British played referee, at some cost to themselves. The story of Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II’s first encounter with photography is both untold and unknown. In a museum publication dating to the 1980s, the then Keeper Yaduendra Sahai suggests that the photographer T. Murray’s visit to Jaipur in 1864 provided the impetus, with an earlier meeting in Simla setting the scene. Murray is believed to have returned to Jaipur several times, even being appointed court photographer. In a later publication, however, Sahai surmises that Sawai Ram Singh was familiar with photography as early as the 1850s, although he does not say how he arrives at this conclusion.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 14:44:31 +0000
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