Royal Indian Portraits: Posing for Posterity

The arrival of photography in India in 1840 began a rivalry between its practitioners and the painters of traditional miniatures and portraits. The novelty of this astonishing new medium soon attracted many court painters and patrons who themselves turned photographers, including the Maharajas of Jaipur, Tripura and Chamba. These early photographs captured Indian rulers and their families in a variety of poses, which nevertheless reflected the formality and constraints of court life.

This fascinating collection features a wide range of photographs - based on previously unpublished archives - that explores early Indian photography, and more specifically portraiture throughout the subcontinent. This remarkable and beautifully presented historical work sheds new light on the relationship between photographers, painters and their patrons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

With a foreword by H.R.H.Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar of Udaipur, Royal Indian Portraits: Posing for Posterity will be a valuable resource both for connoisseurs of early photography and for those interested in the history of India.

Pramod Kumar KG is the Managing Director of the Delhi-based Eka Archiving Services Pvt. Ltd., India’s first museum consulting company. He is the consultant curator for the City Palace Museum, Udaipur and was until recently Associate Director of the Alkazi Foundation, which holds the Alkazi Collection of Photography. He established the Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing in 2005, and was its Founder/Director. During his tenure as the Director of the Jaipur Virasat Foundation, Pramod KG organised the Jaipur Heritage International Festival and founded the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2005.