Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum, Vadodara
The Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum in Vadodara is housed inside the expansive Lakshmi Vilas Palace Estate and was established in 1961. The museum was an adaptive reuse of the family’s Motibaug School, built in 1857. Maharaja Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad, Maharaja Fatehsinhrao Gaekwad, and Maharaja Ranjitsinh Gaekwad studied here. Rich details adorn the facade, including jharokhas (windows), cusped arched openings, and domed chhatris with finials. The exterior is embellished with bands of sculptures and paintings, brackets, and carved stone motifs.
The Founder? It’s Maharaja Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III
Maharaja Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III, an enlightened monarch who transformed his impoverished feudal state into one deserving of a 21-gun salute, oversaw much of Vadodara’s development. His passion for the arts is paralleled by the city’s renowned Maharaja Sayajirao University and Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum in Vadodara.
Architecture of Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum
The museum’s odd mash-up of European, Rajasthani, Gujarati, and Islamic styles form Indo-Saracenic architecture, made from golden stone. The Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum in Vadodara utilises turrets, towers, domes, arches, and columns. Major Charles Mant, a British royal engineer, began construction on the building in 1878, and British architect Robert Chisholm completed it 12 years later in 1890. The museum spans elaborate interiors and a grand durbar hall.
The Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum Vadodara has two humungous stories which can be reached with a working toy train—the tiniest locomotive engine in the world. This was built in the garden transporting children from one block to the next. It was Prince Ranjitsinh Gaekwad’s fifth birthday gift by Pratapsinhrao Gaekwad.
Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum Collection
The Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum in Vadodara boasts artworks curated by the royal Maratha family. It includes portraits, marble busts, paintings from the European Renaissance and Rococo periods, and more than 30 original portraits by Raja Ravi Varma. Maharaja Sir Sayajirao Gaekwad III himself commissioned a large portion of this artwork. Varma delved mostly into Hindu mythology and the Royal family’s oil-painted portraits.
The museum also features 19th and 20th-century paintings. Indian miniature paintings, contemporary Western paintings, Greco-Roman exhibits, Chinese and Japanese art, and European paintings by old masters like Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Murillo, and paintings by Raja Ravi Varma are all must-see. The Italian artist Augusto Felici decorate Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum Vadodara along with Lakshmi Vilas Palace, and the Sayaji Garden.
Furniture studded with jewels, and ivory carvings, all from Maharaja Ranjitsinh Gaekwad’s collection is on show at Maharaja Fateh Singh Museum in Vadodara. They also have a diverse turban and headpiece gallery, which began in 2015, showcasing the opulent variety of headgear and fascinators from around the world. They also display the acquired gifts such as Chinese and Japanese porcelain and paintings by Impressionists and Fauvists.
Image Courtesy – Gujrat Tourism
