18

Property of a Distinguished, New York Collector, Man Ray and other photographers, including Devar...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:5,000.00 - 8,000.00 USD
Property of a Distinguished, New York Collector, Man Ray and other photographers, including Devar...
Property of a Distinguished
New York Collector
Man Ray and other photographers, including Devare's Art Studio, Bombay, Lenare, Rita Martin and Madame Harlip
A Collection of Photographic Portraits of the Maharaja
of Indore and his family
and associates, and further photographs of Manik Bagh Palace Gardens and
related images
51 photographs, comprising 30 individual and group portraits (two by Man Ray), including images of the maharaja in traditional Indian and western dress, 21 other images
silver prints, some mounted in presentation folders or mounted on card, various manuscript and printed credit and annotations
various sizes (51)
Estimate: $5,000-8,000
This collection of photographs reveals the young Prince Holkar of Indore as a dandy who cut a striking figure both in his native dress and in the tailored suits that were just one aspect of the European culture that he adopted with such enthusiasm and flair.
Man Ray recalled the time "The Maharaja of Indore came to the studio to be photographed, also in Western clothes-sack suit and formal evening dress. He was young, tall and very elegant" (Man Ray, Self-Portrait, Boston, 1988 edition, p. 139).
The Manik Bagh Palace in the Indian province of Indore was conceived and furnished in 1930-1933 as a temple to the finest avant-garde
art and design emanating from France and Germany. It may seem surprising that one of
the most sophisticated patrons of progressive European art and design of around 1930 should be a young Indian prince whose native culture was so very different in character. Perhaps it was precisely because he had the detachment of a visitor from another, distant land that Yeswant Rao Holkar Bahadur, the young Maharaja of Indore, was able to recognize and appreciate so immediately and so sharply the defining characteristics of the European avant-garde.
At the time of his investiture in the spring of 1930, the construction of a new palace in traditional style had been initiated. The 25-year-old Maharaja gave instruction to halt the project. He was determined to make his own mark in a modern style and to realize a vision with which he had been inspired as a direct consequence of his travels in Europe. The prince had studied at Queen's College, Oxford, and had traveled in France and in Germany. Among his contacts were at least three figures who were to play a crucial role in shaping his ideas. His British tutor, and later private secretary, a Dr. M.E. Hardy, was an important mentor who effected key introductions to cultural contacts in Europe. Art connoisseur and author Henri-Pierre Roché introduced him to Brancusi and to Duchamp, and opened his eyes to modern art. And it was in the young German architect Eckart Muthesius, only 24 at the time, that he found the kindred visionary spirit whom he could trust with the commission to translate his broad concept of
a luxurious Modernist palace into a breath-
taking reality.