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 ) 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 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. The reconstruction of the wooden mandap from

Sinor ln Baroda district and a whir 1 ing creeper form f ror:1 th e~

tomb of Shaikh Farid at Patan are among major architectural

fragments. The painting collection virtually covers the entire

span of known traditions with exquisite Kalpasutras, magnificent

Kishangarh Pichhvais, an undamaged Hamzanama folio, 31 pages of

an Akbari Razmnama, a delicate Pahadi Bhagawatapurana set besides pages from a Mewar Ramayana painted by Manohar. The discerning

Vlewer may look out for the large Oudh folios, a Desuri Vijnapti­ patra and ritual imagery of Nathdwara. The more diligent one may

find a Basholi portrait or a Bijapur Ragini or even a Chamba

Rumal made for the wedding of prince Jit Singh of Chamba with

Rani Sarada of Jammu. Or find different kinds of delights waiting

in the Kimkhabs of Benares and Shal us of Paithan, Deccan Bidri

ware, Mughal jade hilts, or tent walls, Ganjifas and ivories

including a jewellery box attributed to the . legendary Chandbibi.

6 I All this was collected with a view to c~eate an ambience of the habitats they belonged to and the tastes of people who used them.

So the objects - alongwith paintings - shimmer with sights, smells, spaces and sounds of a myriad environment, customs and habits some of which are lost to us forever. For instance, orna- ments and costumes glitter brightly across gender differe nces something that the changing tastes have effaced.

Besides the 'classical' genres, the collection also includes

'Company' and mixed schools like the scene of a Tanjore-Karnataka war with visual innuendoes reminiscent of a battle scene at

Tambekar Wada 1n Baroda with its accordian-like formation of platoons, of a tragi-comic spectacle. The painted and gilded photographs of erstwhile rulers of Baroda state point to u ther imponderable querries of a local Baroda idiom . An almost mono- chromatic portrait of an early r uler o f Baroda Pil6jirao 1s charect ~ r ~ stic of a technique that hovers between drawing and painting. The reticent hand of the artist having imbibed e le- ments of Tanjore robustness and European naturalism probes for the persona of a man caught between expediencies of keeping cool ln the face of conflicts of succession. Not disparately, the resurgent local sensibility 1s visible in the cur1ous play of p1geons in a corner effectively punctuating the formal if some- what hawkish profile of the sitter with a cocked head, rippling with a degree of unease, casualness and quaint humour.

Hermann Goetz had realised that a museum - with a heavy bias for

7 the traditional - as lS often the case ; may lose relevance and had begun to acquire contemporary works of art. It is also sig­ nificant that a show of Progressive Artists' Group of Bombay was held in the Museum in 1949, a year or so after its formation. The

Museum possesses works of five of its members (some of them ac- quired much before the show) namely Ara, Raza, Souza, Gade and

Bakre besides their contemporaries and predecessors like Bendre,

Hel>bar, Chavda, , , B C Sanyal, K S

Kulkarni as well as Roerichs and Brunners. It has sculptures of an early academist Fanindranath Bose, who had served at the court of Sayajirao and whose work is reported to have attracted the attention of Rodin.(3) Goetz also saw that artists of Gujarat did not go unrepresented. Works of , Rasiklal Pa­ rikh, Sumalal Shah and were acquired.

A museum by nature seeks to conserve memory, retain a sense of history and combat amnesia to keep the viewer conscious of his past as he moves into future. It is also an ajaibghar, a verita­ ble house of wonders of sorts to awaken sleepy sensibilities to delights of discovering the magic of perception - the thrill of viewing every object as if seen for the first time. In its endea­ vour to cut across barriers of art and science the Baroda Museum incorporates sections on zoology, ornithology, ethnology, musical instruments etc. Also on display are regal remnants of the

Gaekwad state and the urn that contained ashes of and a letter of Sardar Patel on the accession of the state in the

Indian Union. An enormous skeleton of a blue whale that was swept ashore the River Mahi in 1944 on view in the cellar draws young

8 and· old alike· to v1ew its wonderons ~ cale. The puris ts may find an intrusion on their sensibilities here, but the educ ational endeavour to provide diverse viewers varie d food for thought seems to have necessitated inclusion of these exhibits. The dis­ cerning viewer may make his choic es - whethe r h e wi s hes to navl- gate the simultaneous streams of historical times , past a nd present - or ponder over a single object - be it a n artifact of the human hand, a painting or a s c ulptur e or an aspect of nat u r~ conserved chemically in a sealed jar.(4)

Notes :

1. Handbook of the Collec tions , Ba roda Mu seum and Pictu re

Gallery, Baroda by Hermann Goetz , 1952 .

2. Akota Bro nzes by U P Shah, Bombay , 1959 .

3 . Catalogue of Mahara j a Fatesingh Mu seum Barodd by Hermanr1 and

Annamarie Goetz, Baroda , 1969 .

4. Informative portions of the e s say are based on publications

listed in notes 1 & 2.

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