Portrait of Maharaja Mahadji-Scindia

Maharaja Mahadji-Scindia, ruler of the Gwalior district in central India, died in 1894. Although the ruler is shown in a formal pose, the painting is generally more illusionistic and less idealized than the earlier royal portraits exhibited here. This difference is due to the influence of both photography and the increased taste for naturalism engendered by so-called company school painting. With the advent of photographic portraiture in the late nineteenth century, sketches such as this, as well as finished portrait paintings, increasingly resembled the work of the portrait-studio camera.