Posing for Posterity: Royal Indian Portraits

The arrival of photography in India in 1840 began a rivalry between its practitioners and the painters of traditional miniatures and portraits. The novelty of this astonishing new medium soon attracted many court painters and patrons who themselves turned photographers, including the Maharajas of Jaipur, Tripura, and Chamba. These early photographs captured Indian rulers and their families in a variety of poses, which nevertheless reflected the formality and strictures of court life.

Pramod Kumar KG here presents a wide range of photographs - based on previously unpublished archives - that delve into early Indian photography, and more particularly portraiture throughout the subcontinent. This remarkable and beautifully presented historical work sheds new light on the relationship between photographers, painters, and their patrons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With a foreword by H.R.H. Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar of Udaipur, Posing for Posterity will be a valuable resource both for connoisseurs of early photography and for those interested in the history of India.

Pramod Kumar KG is the Founder and Managing Director of Eka Cultural Resources and Research. He has worked extensively with photographic collections, and was previously the Associate Director of the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi and Director of the first Jaipur Literature Festival. He co-authored Painted Photographs: Coloured Portraiture in India (2008). He lives in India.