Étude pour le portrait de S. A. le Maharadjah d'Indore en habit du soir; Études de mains pour le portrait de S. A. le Maharadjah d’Indore en costume traditionnel

In January 1928 H. H. the Maharaja of Indore (1908-1961) commissioned the first portrait portraying him in a Western costume. Painted in the summer of 1929 the picture depicts him dressed in a tailcoat with a white tie and an evening cape of white satin thrown over his shoulders. He stands leaning against the fireplace of the small salon of the artist’s Saint-Germain-des-Prés hôtel; on the Empire style fireplace rests a covered vase from a Murano glass set which comprises of two vases and an urn brought back by Bernard Boutet de Monvel from Venice where he spent his honeymoon in 1921. On the wrist of the young Maharaja – he was only twenty one years old and would not exercise power until May 1930 – is a fine watch created for him by Cartier.

After having completed the face of the model and then the general composition of the painting on card, Bernard Boutet de Monvel focused on cleaning up the drawing with the help of traces on tracing paper before painting, first, a sketch to show the model, and then the final painting. It is the purification of the composition that the current sheet witnesses, and the tracing of the face currently in the Museum of the 1930s in Boulogne-Billancourt. On this work, which attests to the artist's creative process, is an address. That of Boutet de Monvel’s architect and friend Eckart Muthesius (1904-1989) in Berlin, where the artist could join the Maharaja.

Enchanted by the delivered portrait as well as the one painted in 1931 of H. H. the Maharani of Indore (1914-1937), the sovereign commissioned the artist with two new portraits, this time showing him like the Maharani, in a traditional costume. Painted in the summer of 1933, again with the same process, this painting showed its patron in a Marathi costume, dressed in a dark rose phaitwi with gold embroidery covering a white angarkha, his head covered with a geranium-red pari, sitting on a white gaddi, the throne of the Holkar dynasty, to which the Maharaja belonged. On his wrist is a Tank watch, still by Cartier, and on his ring finger - his wedding ring. The numerous studies of the maharaja’s left hand resting on his knee are presented in the second drawing of the present lot, with the composition from the final painting seen at the centre of the sheet.

From 26 September 2019 to 12 January 2020 the Musée des Arts Décoratif in Paris dedicated an important exhibition to the Maharaja of Indore titled Moderne Maharajah, un mécène des années 1930, where numerous preparatory drawings for portraits of sovereigns painted by Bernard Boutet de Monvel were shown.

We are grateful to Stéphane-Jacques Addade, Member of the European Chamber for Art Experts for his help with cataloguing this work.