New Delhi, Sept. 14 -- In his lifetime, Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906) was an avid traveller, who ventured beyond the boundaries of his home state Kerala to observe his subjects from close quarters, and later set up an iconic printing press in Maharashtra. His paintings, especially those that were mass-produced as affordable prints by his press, enjoyed a pan-India appeal, beloved of the rich and poor alike. Ravi Varma's afterlife has been no less eventful. Dismissed by artists like Nandalal Bose and historians like Ananda Coomaraswamy as a painter of kitsch, his reputation was revived by a major exhibition at New Delhi's National Museum, curated by art expert Rupika Chawla and artist A. Ramachandran, in 1993.

The artist's fortunes have bee...