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The Last Maharaja Of Indore

Yeshwant Rao Holkar II – Aesthete, Patron, Tragic Prince
Geraldine Lenain
Translator: Sindhuja Veeraragavan

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Description

Yeshwant Rao Holkar II (1908–1961), the last maharaja of Indore, was arguably the most enigmatic and sophisticated amongst his peers. His reign (1926–1948) is often referred to as the Golden Age of Indore. While the Holkars were always known for their patronage especially towards arts and textiles, it was Yeshwant Rao ...who put Indore on the international style circuit with his chic and modernist personal style, and an eye for recognizing and befriending the greatest avant-garde talent of his time. This led him to commission some of the most important Art Deco furniture pieces, palaces, jewellery, and art of his era, from the likes of Man Ray, Eckart Muthesius, and Constantin Brancusi who he considered friends.

At the age of 22, Holkar commissioned the German architect Eckhart Muthesius to design an Art Deco and Bauhaus fantasy for him—Manik Bagh, a monument dedicated to Western modernity housed a variety of furniture and artworks, with many pieces still appearing in major auctions today. Yeshwant Rao, along with his glamorous wife Sanyogita Devi, crafted a legacy of quiet elegance and unparalleled patronage of culture and the arts.

Behind the sophistication, however, there lay another, more mysterious, and at times tragic side of a man torn between the two irreconcilable worlds he straddled—India and the West. Stripped of power and forced to adapt to a new socio-political reality after India’s independence, his life encapsulates the struggles faced by many royal figures of the time, while also marred with personal tragedies, betrayal, and ill health.

This first major biography of Holkar reads like a journey into the heart of the roaring 1920s and a passage through India on the path to independence, revealing the profound complexities of a life marked by both brilliance and sorrow.

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SKU: 9788196738686 Categories: , , ,

Authors

  • Géraldine Lenain is an art historian with over twenty years of experience as a specialist in Asian arts internationally recognized on the art market. She is the chairwoman of the Friends of the Guimet Museum and the vice president of Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP). She has also written Monsieur Loo: The Novel of an Asian Art Dealer.

  • Translator:

    Sindhuja Veeraragavanis a Montreal-based translator working between French and English languages. In 2022, she won the translators’ grant awarded by the National Book Center in France to translate Erik Orsenna’s Sur la Route du Papier. She holds an M.Phil. in translation studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

ISBN
9788196738686
Binding
Paperback
Page Extent
240
Weight (kg)
0.4
Height (in)
8.5
Width (in)
5.5
Subject
Biography, History
Published Date
03/12/24
Publisher
Roli Books

Authors

  • Géraldine Lenain is an art historian with over twenty years of experience as a specialist in Asian arts internationally recognized on the art market. She is the chairwoman of the Friends of the Guimet Museum and the vice president of Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP). She has also written Monsieur Loo: The Novel of an Asian Art Dealer.

  • Translator:

    Sindhuja Veeraragavanis a Montreal-based translator working between French and English languages. In 2022, she won the translators’ grant awarded by the National Book Center in France to translate Erik Orsenna’s Sur la Route du Papier. She holds an M.Phil. in translation studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

ISBN
9788196738686
Binding
Paperback
Page Extent
240
Weight (kg)
0.4
Height (in)
8.5
Width (in)
5.5
Subject
Biography, History
Published Date
03/12/24
Publisher
Roli Books

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