Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906)

The correct measurements for this work are 13 1/4 by 10 in. (33.5 by 25.4 cm.) This lot was sold through Sotheby's 21 September 2001, sale N07694 lot 185 Provenance: Fritz Schleischer Family Collection For Further Discussion of the artist and his career, see, 'The Artist as Charismatic Individual: Raja Ravi Varma', in Mitter, Cambridge, 1994, pp.179-218. In 1893 Ravi Varma establishes the first printing press in India, known as the Ravi Varma Oleographic and Chromolithographic Printing Workshop. To help produce his paintings, Varma employed Fritz Schleischer of Berlin, a printer highly qualified in the technique of reproduction of colour lithographic printing, to act as manager of the workshop. At the turn of the century the City of Bombay was ravaged by bubonic plague and the workshop was relocated to a little known hill-station called Malavli in the Western Ghats, about 80 miles from the city. Schleischer paid the first instalment of 4000 rupees towards the purchase of the print works in 1903, at which stage the firm was renamed The Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Works. About a hundred yards away from the factory, Schleischer built his home on a hillside, married and had twelve children. His youngest daughter, Lotti married to an Indian doctor, Dr. Surendra Singh, inherited this and the following paintings by Varma from her father. Canvas relined. Overall good condition but appears to have been recently cleaned and revarnished with minor retouching to forehead, left cheek and left upper arm. Colors of original, slightly richer than catalogue illustration.
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The precepts of European realist painting were introduced in India with the establishment of art schools in Madras, Calcutta and Bombay in the mid-nineteenth century. The aim of these schools was to wean Indian artists away from the formulaic and 'degenerate designs' of the centuries-old miniature painting tradition and instead cultivate in them the skills to faithfully render the likenesses of their subjects as they existed in the natural world. Over the same period, British-born artists such as Tilly Kettle, James Wales, Thomas Hickey and Robert Home worked on commissions from various royal courts in India.

The combined effect of these influences was the emergence of a new class of Indian artists who closely followed the Western Academic style, chief amongst whom was Raja Ravi Varma. Born in Kerala (the erstwhile British province of Travancore) in 1848, Ravi Varma learnt oil painting from Theodor Jenson, a British artist working at the Travancore court. He was the first Indian painter to adopt Western painting traditions but his choice of subjects remained firmly rooted in Indian life.

Ravi Varma's portraits were characterized by 'a tactile reality imbued with subtly nuanced flesh tones and careful attention to facial characteristics. In addition to the glistening physical presence, the depiction of clothes and glittering jewelry of his women create a mimetic spell on the viewer.' (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi, 2001, p. 17).