Important Notice

Asvathi Tirunal married Narayani somewhere around 1890-1891. Following the wedding, she moved into Sreepadam Palace, his residence, and came to be known as “Sreepadam Ammachi”, “Ammachi” being the title by which royal consorts were addressed. For the next nine years, Narayani remained here, but in keeping with custom, after the prince’s death, she moved back to her own family home, Kaithavilakam. With her she took the couple’s personal... Asvathi Tirunal married Narayani somewhere around 1890-1891. Following the wedding, she moved into Sreepadam Palace, his residence, and came to be known as “Sreepadam Ammachi”, “Ammachi” being the title by which royal consorts were addressed. For the next nine years, Narayani remained here, but in keeping with custom, after the prince’s death, she moved back to her own family home, Kaithavilakam. With her she took the couple’s personal possessions: letters, furniture, but also Asvathi Tirunal’s art collection.

Given the prince’s close bond with Ravi Varma, it is no surprise that the collection featured several works by the artist. Of course, Ravi Varma painted for the royal family in general, but the pictures for the prince have a certain distinctness. For instance, Hanuman’s Discourse is a small work for a mythological painting, probably made as a personal request. Another is a larger work but still unusual: it depicts Asvathi Tirunal, aged sixteen, posing on a tricycle, dressed in Western clothes. It is very likely that this too was specifically requested by the prince, who wished to be portrayed in an East-meets-West, consciously “modern” style.

Two other Ravi Varmas existed in Narayani’s possession which-being childless-she left to her only nephew. One of these, almost certainly made from a photograph, is lot 39, a posthumous 1901 portrait of Asvathi Tirunal, again in European clothes. In the diary of Ravi Varma’s brother, C Raja Raja Varma, we find a February 1901 entry recording that they had begun a portrait of the late prince.3 It adds that the picture was for the “Native High School”. However, no such painting exists in the school; perhaps on her request, Ravi Varma instead presented it to Narayani, or she acquired the portrait from the school for herself. Either way, the painting referred to in the diary is most likely this very one.

The other portrait, lot 38, is of Narayani herself, also made from a studio photograph. Given that she was widowed in her mid-twenties, and the fact that the Ammachis whose royal husbands died did not wear jewels in their widowhood, this portrait could only have been made during the nine years of Asvathi Tirunal’s conjugal life with Narayani. Given Ravi Varma’s fondness for this nephew, this could have been a quick work, presented to the prince not long after his marriage. It is, of course, just as possible that Asvathi Tirunal himself made the request-as with the tricycle portrait-and Ravi Varma obliged him. This also makes Narayani’s portrait the older of the two paintings, dating to the early or mid-1890s.

The two pictures were not intended as companion pieces, but they came to be viewed as such. In her house, Narayani had the prince’s portrait hung above one doorway in the drawing room, and her own across the hall over another; this way the two paintings permanently faced each other, as if compensating for a marriage cut tragically short. They stayed in this position, long after she died in the 1920s, for nearly a century, until they were acquired by the present owner from Narayani’s grandniece- her only nephew’s only daughter, who also inherited the royal widow’s home and other property.

In this, perhaps, lies the charm of these works: that for all these decades they stayed quietly and nearly forgotten in a home in one of the narrow alleys of Trivandrum. And yet, in a way, they also kept alive the story of a talented, promising couple: a royal consort and the king who never was.
— Manu Pillai

Asvathi Tirunal: Prince Asvathi Tirunal Martanda Varma (1871-1900) was known as the ‘BA Prince’ of Travancore, being the first Indian royal to obtain a university degree in the 1890s. One of the most promising princes of Travancore-unorthodox, urbane, talented-his early death when still in his twenties deprived the state of a great future ruler. A close nephew of Raja Ravi Varma, this is a posthumous portrait.

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