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Yeshwant Rao Holkar II of Indore in western dress
1929
By Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Paris, 1929
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of HE Sheikh Saoud bin Mohamed bin Ali Al-Thani
© 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.

This striking portrait of Yeshwant Rao Holkar II shows him in fashionable European evening dress and makes no reference to his identity as a maharaja. The painting hints at the contrasting worlds inhabited by Indian rulers who, in the early twentieth century, had to reconcile the expectations of traditional kingship with their desire for a modern Western lifestyle.