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

The city of Baroda, with its vibrant history of art and architecture, is a much-sought-after destination for art education. This is due in large part to Sayajirao Gaekwad III, the maharaja of the erstwhile princely state of Baroda. His art-collecting practice significantly shaped Baroda's modern art-and-craft institutions and industries. A scientific and progressive thinker, Sayajirao encouraged Baroda's alternative experiments in art, craft, and design and contributed to the making of a new national art. During his reign, Raja Ravi Varma, Sankheda lacquerware, and the Patan patola debuted on the national and international trail of exhibitions.

Employing rare archival data, back-room surveys, and exhaustive research, Fashioning a National Art discusses how a native prince not only patronized the local arts but also mediated a cross-cultural dialogue between the European and indigenous art techniques. This book also presents a rarely documented aspect of Sayajirao- as the lender of the royal collection to regional and international exhibitions and a global tastemaker. Besides tracing the history of elite patrons, famous artists, and European sculptors such as Augusto Felici and Derwent Wood, it also delves into the stories of subalterns such as master ivory craftsman Neelakandan Asari, wood-worker Keshav Mistry, and others.