Enlarge Image Yeshwant Rao Holkar II of Indore in western dress
1929
By Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Paris, 1929
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of HE Sheikh Saoud bin Mohamed bin Ali Al-Thani
© 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.
This striking portrait of Yeshwant Rao Holkar II shows him in fashionable European evening dress and makes no reference to his identity as a maharaja. The painting hints at the contrasting worlds inhabited by Indian rulers who, in the early twentieth century, had to reconcile the expectations of traditional kingship with their desire for a modern Western lifestyle.