Maharanas Mewar and More

Maharana Sajjan Singh.

Dug out from a private archive which boasts of over 30,000 objects, a tome published by the Maharana Mewar Historical Publications Trust takes readers through a century of visual narratives, from 1857 to 1957. And what makes Long Exposure: The Camera at Udaipur (Rs 1,999) more than just a catalogue is the fact that it also documents the history, and the changes that the princely state of Mewar underwent. It also serves as a guide to how photography flourished in Udaipur in its nascent days.

Arvind Singh Mewar of Udaipur, Chairman and Managing Trustee of the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation, Udaipur, says, “Materials preserved in our pictorial archives are now being shared with the world. This is an ongoing process of channelising the power of our heritage and making it relevant and meaningful to contemporary times.” Many of these 325 pictures are part of a shuffling selection on display at Bhagwat Prakash Gallery, in the Zenana Mahal, a part of the City Palace complex in Udaipur. The entirety of the collection falls under Pictorial Archives of the Maharanas of Mewar (PAMM), and is the most exhaustive when it comes to a private, royal collection.

In the book which is now available in all major stores, one can see glimpses of life at the princely court, and the famed vista of Udaipur City through the work of a host of photographic studios. From glass plate negatives to cartes-de-visite, platinum prints to photomontages, painted photographs to panoramas, the book is also a showcase of how early photography blended with native art forms. Says Pramod Kumar KG, one of the authors of the book, “The work of the local artists both at Udaipur and at the nearby temple town of Nathdwara, contributed to the new hybrid visual vocabulary that was, in time, seen all over India. Proscenium stage-like backdrops, Western furniture, and other accoutrements, were soon to create a new photographic idiom. Today, these images are considered the precursors of mass-produced, popular Indian imagery.”