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Friday, November 26, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Suniti Devi, Maharani of Cooch Behar (1864-1932) was the daughter of Keshub Chandra Sen – one of the leading lights of a westernising and rationalising movement within Hinduism.
Her marriage to the young Maharaja of Cooch Behar had only gone ahead when the reforming Hindus of her father’s organisation were assured that the wedding ceremony would be expunged of its idolatrous portions.
In this image from 1902 the Maharani wears the gown of white satin (made by ‘a French milliner’) with 'Empire' wreath design embroidered in gold, ostrich feather fan, and tiara which she wore to the Coronation of King Edward VII on 9 August 1902.
Many Indian royals spent time in England and to overcome opposition from the viceregal administration they presented doctors’ notes stipulating the need for cool air for health reasons!
The Cooch Behar royal couple were frequent visitors to England, with their four sons at school at Eaton, nevertheless it was ground-breaking at the time for an Indian lady of high rank to wear structured European clothing.
The fact that no images of the Maharani were reproduced in the press might indicate that the public in Cooch Behar were not yet ready to see just how westernised the Maharani had become.
During her stay in Cooch Behar in 1896, Daisy was convinced that the Maharani guessed nothing of her husband’s feelings for Daisy. Nevertheless, she blamed the Maharaja’s unhappiness on the Maharani and noted “she is the most discontented woman I ever met.” In her autobiography, the Maharani for her part lists erroneously “the Pless couple” among a long list of royalties who visited Cooch Behar for the hunting but carefully points out, when recounting her experience at the coronation of 1902, that "I stood between Princess Frederica of Hanover and Princess Daisy of Pless... I heard that my tiara was voted the prettiest there."
The Maharani outlived her husband by over twenty years and lived to see her first son reign for only two years before he drank himself to death in 1913.
She visited the Lafayette studio on at least three more occasions, in 1902, 1910 and 1921 when she had a series of portraits made, wearing the traditional Indian widow’s white and with her jewels removed, for her Autobiography of an Indian Princess.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Coochbehar-City Of Beauty
Idealised from the concept of classical European style of Italian Renaissance, this magnificent palace was built by the famous Koch king Maharaja Nripendra Narayan in 1887. Raised on a basement of 1.5 metres in height, this double storied brick building covers an area of 4768 square metres. It extends 120 metres from north to south and 90 metres from east to west. The frontal facade consists of a series of arches resting by an alternate arrangement of narrow and broad piers to contain single and double Corinthian pilasters respectively. | |
| A porch is projected in the center to provide main entrance to the building through the Durbar Hall. Recalling the memory of St. Peter's Church at Rome, the Durbar Hall is dodecagonal in shape, resting on four arches supported by massive Corinthian pilasters and projecting a lantern at the top. The intrados of the dome is relieved in stepped patterns and flanked by a small elegant balcony with twelve window openings at the base. In the center of the Durbar Hall, the marble floor contains the royal insignia in pietradura. The building contains more than fifty rooms/halls of varied dimensions which include the bedrooms, dressing rooms, billiard room, kitchen, dinning hall, dancing hall, library, toshakhana and the ladies gallery. Certain rooms deserve special attention for their beautiful paintings in the ceiling as well as in the interior wall surface. | |
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