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A princely influence
Art connoisseur Parsram Mangharam muses on his favourite subject, renowned Indian artist Raja Ravi Varma, and what led him to publish two books on 'The Painter Prince'
- PUBLISHED: Sat 4 Oct 2008, 11:31 AM UPDATED: Tue 7 Nov 2023, 9:48 AM
"I'M NOT AN artist. I'm a biscuit manufacturer,î remarked a smiling Parsram Mangharam when he met with City Times recently.
This fact did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm for the arts, as we went on to discover. Parsram, whose company JB Mangharam and Co. was established by his father in 1918 in Sindh, has published two books on Raja Ravi Varma, the renowned painter from Kerala. The first book, Raja Ravi Varma – The Painter Prince, is a lavishly illustrated volume with over 200 stunning reproductions of Raja Ravi Varma's paintings sourced from palaces, museums, art galleries and private collections across India. The second, Raja Ravi Varma – The Most Celebrated Painter of India, has 70 reproductions of his paintings, each with a descriptive narration and history.
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So what first attracted him to art and the works of Raja Ravi Varma? ìI have been interested in art since my younger days because some of the most important artists of those days, like like S.M. Pandit and Mulgaonkar, used to design packaging for our company, people. Around this time I was introduced to the works of Raja Ravi Varma, when on my business trips to Kerala I came in contact with the Maharaja of Travancore, Chitra Thirunal. After he passed away, his brother, Marthanda Varma became the Maharaja. He was collecting funds to restore murals in the Sri Padmanabh Swamy temple in Trivandrum; it was he who suggested that I bring out a book on Raja Ravi Varma. It took me around three years to visit palaces, art galleries, private collectors and other sources all over India to find his works, have them photographed, and put them in a book. The Princess of Travancore, Gouri Lakshmi Bayi, was very helpful and contributed the English text in the book, Raja Ravi Varma – The Painter Prince, which has received a very good response since its initial publication in 2002.î
Parsram goes on to talk about Raja Ravi Varma's artworks. ìMost of the paintings revolve around his woman, Maharajahs, mythology, episodes from the works of Kalidas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharat. He became renowned for his depictions of Hindu deities like Saraswati and Lakshmi in paintings, which have shaped popular imagination.î
According to Parsram, Raja Ravi Varma was the first person to give these deities a 'human' form, a fact unknown to a lot of people. His paintings became so popular that these deities have been visualised in very much the same way ever since.
Raja Ravi Varma made his paintings more widely accessible through the oleograph system of printing. Parsram says, ìRaja Ravi Varma mass produced prints of his popular works on deities so that they could be made available to the common man, who otherwise could not afford his paintings, which were priced between 1500 to 2000 rupees, a very huge amount in those days.î
Originally from Gwalior, India, but settled in Bangalore now, Parsram owns Temple Trees, a company which deals in, among other souvenirs, books, greeting cards, postcards and prints relating to Raja Ravi Varma's paintings. He is also a trustee of Chitrakala Parishad, an art institute in Bangalore. He recently held an exhibition of Raja Ravi Varma's original oleographs at the Nehru Centre in London in association with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
He concludes, ìMy passion is Raja Ravi Varma and I wish that his beautiful paintings go everywhere in the form of a printing, a book or a greeting card, a postcard – so that more and more people get to know about him.î