Made for Maharajas: A Design Diary of Princely India

Indian royalty's passion for western luxury goods reached its peak at the height of the British Raj (1857-1947) as Indian rulers travelled to Europe and began to model their lives along western lines. Commissioning architects to design palaces in modern or historic styles, purchasing fleets of cars, and ordering their family jewels to be reset by the most skilled European goldsmiths, Indian princes established themselves as the new creative patrons of European high design. Based equally in the archives of firms such as Louis Vuitton, Boucheron, Chaumet and Hermes, and in palaces and private collections, this book examines the role of maharajas in an age of high spending and fashion. It brings together original designs with surviving objects, and, for the first time, looks at the creative dialogue between Indian princes and the skilled tradesmen who satisfied their desires. Paired with the objects themselves are absorbing and often humourous accounts of how maharajas indulged their tastes with unparalleled extravagance and aplomb. Rich in anecdotes and visually splendid, Made for Maharajas brings alive the extraordinary lavish, varied and sometimes implausible works commissioned by princes whose wealth knew no bounds and whose eccentricities were legend.