The Maharaja and Maharani of Indore

Portrait of the Maharaja of Indore in traditional dress, by Bernard Boutet de Monvel, 1934.

Maharajadhiraj Raj Rajeshwar Sawai Shri Yeshwant Rao II Holkar XIV Bahadur (6 September 1908, Indore - 5 December 1961, Bombay), Maharaja of Indore, a member of the Holkar dynasty of the Marathas. Educated at Cheam School and at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1926, at the age of seventeen, he succeeded his father Tukojirao Holkar III, who had abdicated in his favor. At first under a regency, he was invested with his full powers in 1930.

The Maharaja of Indore, by Boutet de Monvel, 1929.

The Maharani of Indore, by Boutet de Monvel, 1929.

The Maharani of Indore in traditional dress, by Boutet de Monvel, 1934.

In 1924 he had married Maharani Shrimant Akhand Soubhagyavati Sanyogita Bai Sahib Holkar (1914 - 13 July 1937, Tarasp, Switzerland).  He and Maharani Sanyogita, who had also been educated in England, had a daughter, Usha, born in Paris in 1933.

 

The royal couple, very young and fabulously wealthy, with quite contemporary tastes, were completely cosmopolitan, making very prolonged sojourns to Europe and America; there were complaints that they spent so little time in their home country.

In Hollywood, on the set of "The Plainsman", with Gary Cooper and Cecil B. DeMille, 1936.

With actress Gail Patrick, 1936.

In 1930 they commissioned a German architect to build a new streamlined Art Moderne palace, Manik Bagh, in Indore.  Every detail of the this remarkable building was designed and created in Europe; the names involved in the project include Ruhlmann, Le Corbusier, Puiforcat, Eileen Gray, Luckhardt, Brancusi, etc.

Boutet de Monvel's portrait of the Maharaja can be seen on the wall.

The "Indore Pears".  Here, set as earrings.  Almost forty-seven carats each,
they were sold to Harry Winston in 1946.  In the portrait of the Maharaja
wearing Indian dress, the two stones are pendant from a diamond necklace
that can be seen under the strands of pearls.  (See below.)  In the Monvel
painting of the Maharani, they have been set into a diamond and emerald
necklace, the work of Mauboussin.

The diamonds as set by Chaumet, 1913.

Two designs by Mauboussin for a necklace setting of the "Indore Pears".

The completed necklace, as worn by the Maharani in Boutet de Monvel's portrait, differs from both of these designs.

The Maharaja of Indore came to the studio [in Paris] to be photographed, also in Western clothes - sack suits and formal evening dress. He was young, tall and very elegant. I got a substantial order from this sitting. […] Next year, the Maharaja was in the South of France with his young bride. He had taken an entire floor of a hotel in Cannes for himself and his retinue. I arrived in Cannes before noon, was assigned to my room in the suite […] The Maharanee was an exquisite girl in her teens. She wore French clothes, and a huge emerald ring. The Maharaja had bought it for her that morning while taking a walk. […] The next day I was asked to bring my camera to their suite […] to make a series of photographs that would be a record of their honeymoon. First, I had to play some jazz to which the subjects danced, and then they sat down holding hands. I made a few exposures, after which I suggested that they pose separately for individual portraits. - Man Ray

Thirteen portraits by Man Ray.

The Maharani appears to be wearing the same gown here as in the portrait by Boutet de Monvel.

The Maharani Sanyogita died at the tender age of twenty-two.  (It's been very difficult to gather any information on her life and death. Several years after I first published this post, I read that she was in Switzerland for a "cure" - whether just a rest cure or for something more serious, I don't know - and that she suddenly became ill and was operated on for a ruptured appendix, but died during the operation; I've found nothing else to corroborate any of this.)  She left behind her four year old daughter, and her husband, not even thirty, was devastated.

The Maharaja married twice more, both times to American divorcées.  He had a son with his third wife, whom he had married in 1943, but because of the irregularity of this marriage, his titles eventually passed to his daughter from his first marriage.

Two drawings of the Maharaja by Boutet de Monvel.

After the independence of India, Indore was combined with twenty-four other princely states to form the new state of Madhya Bharat, where the Maharaja served as senior Up-Rajpramukh (second in command to the governor) until 1956, when the Indian states were again reorganized.  He then worked for the United Nations.  He died in a hospital in Bombay (Mumbai) at the age of fifty-three.

***

Bernard Boutet de Monvel (9 August 1881, Paris - 28 October 1949, San Miguel, The Azores), French painter, sculptor, engraver, fashion illustrator, and interior decorator. Successful in his youth, he was awarded the Légion d'Honneur for his valor as a bombardier during World War I. He is best remembered for his cool and glamorous portraits of the 1920s and 30s. He was killed in a plane crash in the Azores, alongside violinist Ginette Neveu and boxer Marcel Cerdan, Edith Piaf's great love.