WORLDLY TASTES OF INDIAN ROYALTY

Through ambitious commissions that demanded scale, spectacle and symbolism, Indian royalty shaped how European maisons viewed luxury

- TEXT BY NAMRATA DEWANJEE

1911, Delhi Durbar. It was cause for celebration as King George V was crowned Emperor of India. All monarchs from the princely states were invited, and as they arrived at the royal pavilion, the contrast between the British sovereign and the Indian kings was unmistakable. The Maharajas' visual abundance appeared as an antithesis to the Emperor's restraint. Rather than seeing a simplistic binary, Jacques Cartier perceived the possibility of cross-continental collaboration. Among the French jeweller's Indian clientele, the most emblematic was Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, remembered today for the Patiala Necklace. Commissioned in 1925, it was Cartier's largest single order. Assembled from cut stones shipped from India (including the 234-carat De Beers diamond), the ornament among others of its time is said to have influenced Cartier's later Tutti Frutti collection. In the outrage surrounding the necklace's absence at the 2025 Met Gala, what often goes unmentioned is the political context of its making: the volatility of post-war Punjab, British allyship with the Sikh ruler and an a