The Baroda Collection a Rich and .Varied Fare
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The Baroda Collection A Rich and .varied Fare Gulammohammed Sheikh The Baroda Museum can be said to have two unique distinctions: one, it was designed as a museum - and not converted into one from an existing building - and two, it was planned as and con tinues to remain an art history museum. The architects R F Chi solm and R N Mant seem to have responded to the structural sys tems of the local wadas and havelis especially evident ln the extensive use of wood as prime material. The design howeve~ depends essentially on the architectural modes and devices of European or1g1n -- legitimately so in the absence of antecedents of museums ln the indigenous tradition. The aJl-wooti roof ln conjunction with brick walls serve as effective insulating agents and the high walls of the building provide volume for warm air to rise up to the ventilation outlets, thus reducing summer tempera ture to protect the precious objects within. The c ommodious interior permits movements of large audiences besides creating ample wall and floor space for numerous exhibits of various s1zes and shapes. The display is not unlike that of a salon which combines spaces both domestic and public and shows paintings and sculptures in the company of the functional objets d'art ln accordance with the tastes of times. A contemporary viewer used to seeing isolated objects displayed in clinical spaces might at first glance find it cluttered, but a second viewing would reveal purpose in evoking a broad cultural ethos rather than projecting art alone. 1 The preference for art history stems from the person of Maharaja Sayajirao, the chief 'architect' of Baroda in senses more than the term 'architecture' connotes, and the passion for education he considered cardinal for the emancipation of his populace. The Baroda Museum seems to have amassed specimens of art from every period, every school, of even individual artists in some cases to reconstruct histories of the art of the East (especially India) a nd of the West (especially Western Europe) stage by stage. It alia seems to have marshalled all its resources to acqu1re origi nal works far beyond its ostensible financial or physical reach to s upplement the collection of replicas. The replicas unlike reproductions 1n books, present the work of art, particularly sculpture, 1n accurate size and scale which often determine its .Co rm a nd a esthetic import, and are thus of considerable signifi c ance for comparative study. The facsimile casts of the succes sive phases of Egyptian, Greek, Mesopotemian, Roman and Medieval sculpture notably Michelangelo's Slaves and Moses as well as Titian's Peter the Martyr prove the point. The latter is a un1quc historically significant copy of the painting in SS Giovanni e Paolo at Venice considering the original was destroyed by fire in AD 1874. These alongwith an assortment of Rococo tapestries, porcelein and Majolica wares, Venetian glass - and even part of an embroidered costume of Mme Pompadour would provide ample material to a student of Western art not able to go abroad. The breadth of the collection of originals however surpasses the proxies. The Egyptian section has a complete sarcophagus of ~ 2 I yduth of the Late Period. A rare reli~f from a house chapel r~presenting the sacred bull Bukhis -'the soul of the sun' and the war-god Montu stand out among a cluster of statuettes 1n sem1- precious stones and bronze. From the Greco-Roman times c ome Mycenean and Corinthian vases, an amphora and a bronze copy of a statue of the Thorn-Extractor. Chou dynasty ritual bronze ves- sels and T'ang terracottas of a horse, a camel and a figurine from China ~Q~ ~ ld merit a special mention, besides a Ching pa r - trait of a Mandarin and the jade and lacquer ware of late r per1- ods. There are Japanese sculptures, ceramics, painted sc r o lls , wooden boxes, coins and dolls. Tangkas, Tantrik mandalas , jewel- encrusted platters, even a c hess board from Nepal a nd Tibe t, Buddhist statuettes from Thailand, a manuscript and ... a mass1vc wooden gong from Burma, a dragon brace l e t f rom J og j a ka r t a, a wooden sculpture image from Java and a narrative pa inte d s c rol l Ider Ider from Bali enrich the Himalayan, the Far Easte rn a nd the Southeast Asian galleries. From Wes t Asia and north Af r i ca come illustrated Shahanamas, copies of the Quran, encaustic tiles from the reign of Shah Abbas in Iran. The more c urious viewer may also find Florentine vases made for the Arab world, a model of the facade of Alcazar in Seville as well as a Hispano-Moresque dish, a Fatimid perfume phial (found at Karvan near Baroda) or pots- herds of Fustat and Mesopotemia equally fascinating. Of Western art however, most noteworthy is the collection of nearly two hundred oil paintings chosen with a view to represent all significant schools of European painting since the Renais- 3 sance. Assembl~d during the years of the First World War through the prudent expertise of Marion H Spielmann, the editor of 'Connoisseur', it was subsequently appended and cataloged by Maurice Dibdin, a reputed art critic .. 'The Picture Gallery', according to Dr. Hermann Goetz, the dynamic director of the Museum through the forties, 'has the best collection of old maste rpieces of European painting to be f o und not only in I ndia, but in the whol e of Asia. In several cases Baroda paintings are even be tter than their counterparts in Europe' .(1) Outstanding a mo ng the Italian paintings are the Holy Family by Bonifazio Ve ronese , Ma rtyrdom of St. Bartholomew by Agostino Carracci, b e sides those from the oeuvre of the Venetian Andrea Schia vone, Ge noese Bernardo Strozzi, IL Guercino of Bologna and the Neapoli- ... t an Sa l vato re Ro sa, Luca Giordano etc. The Spanish a re repre sent- e d by Coello (I sabe lla d e Val vois), Jusepe de Ribera (Chris t at Emmaus ) ) , France s c o Zurbaran, Alonso Cano etc. The portrait (by Dirk Stoop) o f the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza who married Charle s II o f England and brought Bombay as dowry t o the British crown is of c onsiderable historical significance. Choice Flemish paintings include a portrait of Frederic de Marselaer by Rubens, an e xquisite Flight into Egypt by Martin Rykaert besides works of David Taniers and others. Works of Albert Cuyp, Hendrik Cornelisz van der Vliet and Jan Van Ravestejn represent the seventeenth and eighteenth century genres in Holland. French paintings include internationally known names of Millet, Courbet, Fragonard and (of the school of) Nicholas Poussin. The English collection, by far the largest, consists of the works of Consta- ble and Turner, Reynolds, Watts, Millais, Nollekens, Zoffany and 4 Poynter among'others. A series of five pictures Race for Wealth by W P Frith and four sketchbooks of Romney are among the most notable exhibits. Most spectacular of all however is the collection o f sculp tures and paintings from the Indian s ubcontine nt, p a r t i c ular l y f rom Gujarat, even from Baroda. The Akota bronzes f ound in 1 949 from what lS now a part of Baroda, have attract e d a tte ntion o£ the expert and general Vlewer alike. The i n i t i a l excavat ion had brought to surface only few of the tre asure t rov e of 160 piece~) collec ted eventually. The story goe s that a s ubsta ntial part o f the hoard disappeared while the digging wa s i n pro gress a nd fe l l into hands of indiscriminate deale rs a nd others wh o rn a ~ even ha ve broken open and destroyed many i mages i n t he hope o f ex tracting the gold and precious stones within. On e s uc h p e r son had ~p p ro priated a sizeable bulk of the hoard by c l a i mi ng possessl on through miraculous appearance but Drs. U P Shah and R N ~ehta threatened him with dire consequence s of e xposure a nd retrieved 93 pieces of the treasure. But for the timely action of these scholars, the Akota bronzes might have got dispersed or disap peared beyond recovery. The magnificent Rishabhnath (o f 460-500 AD) being 'the earliest known representation of a clothed Jina as conceived by the Svetambara sect' marks 'the age of differentia tion from the Digambara icons' .(2) This and the images of Jivan taswami (6th cent. AD) and the celebrated Chamardharini (chauri. bearer) on display in the Museum bear witness to the heyday of Ankottaka and the village of Vatapadraka between the 2nd and 11th 5 cent. AD from ~hich Akota and Vadodara derive their names repsec tively. ~he unusual name 'Ankottaka' and the discovery of a Roman jar handle portraying Eros as Oarsman in the excavated collection indicate trade links that the wester~ region of India had with the Roman empire. A marked educational motivation also characterises the collection of Indian art evident in the representation of every phase of sculpture and painting. It ranges from the Harappan finds ln Gujarat to an Ahichchhatra head, a Chola Nataraja and a Khajuraho Ganesha. Most outstanding are the examples from various sites ln Gujarat namely, Shamlaji, Roda, Dev ni Mori, Rajpipla, Vira~gam, Dabhoi and Baroda.