This story is from February 19, 2020

Baroda nurtured Ravi Varma’s epochal talent

Baroda nurtured Ravi Varma’s epochal talent
Raja Ravi Varma’s studio near Motibaug Ground
Vadodara: Had it not been Baroda, millions would have missed the colourful depiction of Indian Gods and Goddesses. For it was this erstwhile state that provided Raja Ravi Varma, the opportunity to proclaim the splendour of India’s heritage. Born on April 29, 1848, Raja Ravi Varma was closely connected with the royal house of Travancore. He was already making waves with the splash of colours in his paintings at the age of 13.

But his tryst with Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III helped him in reaching his works to the masses. T Madhav Rao, who first served as Dewan of Travancore and later as Dewan (Prime Minister) of Baroda State invited Raja Ravi Varma to make a portrait of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III.
Varma first came to the city and spent four months in 1881-82. Sayajirao got a studio built for him near Motibaug ground where Varma stayed and worked. The young Maharaja was so impressed by Varma’s works that in 1888, he invited Varma to Ooty where he commissioned 14 mythological paintings illustrating the national epics – Ramayana and Mahabharata – for the decoration of the new Durbar Hall in the new Laxmi Vilas Palace.
“Sayajirao had given Rs 50,000 to Raja Ravi Varma for starting a printing press at Mumbai in 1893. The first oleograph to be printed at this press was of Varma’s famous painting ‘Birth of Shakuntala’. Also, the original painting of Maneka and Vishwamitra made by Varma still adorns the walls of Fatehsinhrao Museum in the city,” said Sachin Kaluskar, art connoisseur who has a rich collection of Varma’s oleographs.
It was Raja Ravi Varma, who chose the sari as the drapery of his epic heroines and many believe that the pan-Indian acceptance of the sari as the formal dress for women possibly owes much to his sari-clad heroines. From 1888 till 1890, Ravi Varma worked on the 14 puranic paintings of the Baroda commission in Kilimanur and Mavelikara, where his studio was located at the Madham Palace. These paintings of the Baroda commission were first exhibited at the Trivandrum museum in 1890 and later in Bombay in 1892.
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