An exhibition at NGMA takes us back to the India of early 20th century

The royalty of today turned up at the National Gallery of Modern Art on Saturday to catch up with the royalty of yore. The event was the opening of the Albert Kahn Collection: Journeys to India — an exhibition of 1,200 autochromes (a type of photographs) and vintage Louis Vuitton trunks from the collection of Kahn, an French banker-turned-philanthropist. The exhibition, a part of Bonjour India , was organised by French luxury brand Louis Vuitton. Narayana Murthy of

Infosys, SBI chairman OP Bhatt and industrialist Vijay Mallya checked out the autochromes showing the official court scenes and family portraits of the Indian royalty Maharajas in their finery, as well as the street life of Agra, Varanasi,

Secundrabad, Mumbai and other parts of India around 1914. The images range from a jaunty Afghan guardian of a Muslim tomb in a Scottish cloak to the Maharaja of Kapurthala Jagatjit Singh’s grand palace, built by two French architects along the lines of the Palace of Versailles . “The Maharaja’s predilection for the country of Victor Hugo gave Kapurthala a grand siecle air,” said Tikka Shatrujit Singh, Jagatjit Singh's grandson and Advisor, Louis Vuitton. For Karan Singh, President of Indian Council for Cultural Relations, the event was a reason to reminisce. “I am aware that when my father and mother sailed to France , they carried the luggage in huge LV trunks. Louis Vuitton must have made vast sums of money through this,” he laughed. Actor Soha Ali Khan, whose mother Sharmila is the great-granddaughter of poet Rabindranath Tagore, admired the portrait of the Nobel Laureate poet, framed by bougainvillea and shot at Kahn’s rose garden at Boulogne in June 1921. Though Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit made a quick exit, theatre personality Ebrahim Alkazi, entrepreneur Sangeeta Assomull, Ashish Anand of Delhi Art gallery, and designer JJ Valaya struck around for longer.

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