The chandeliers still glitter at Lukshmi Vilas Palace, and the treasures of the Gaekwads—Raja Ravi Varma’s seven-strand pearls, a diamond once known as the Star of the South—remain enviably intact. But what defines Baroda’s present-day royalty is not just what they possess, but what they preserve.
At the centre of this cultural stewardship is Maharani Radhikaraje Gaekwad, a woman of quiet command and cultivated taste, who has taken on the role of a custodian with sensibility shaped as much by international museums as by royal archives. Married into the illustrious Gaekwad dynasty—her husband Samarjitsinh Ranjitsinh Gaekwad is the current titular Maharaja—she belongs equally to the past and the future.
Born as the princess of Wankaner, Gujarat, her arrival at Baroda’s 170-room Lukshmi Vilas Palace in 2002 marked more than a shift in address. It was the beginning of an intimate, intellectual journey—one that would eventually lead her to revive heritage textiles like the chanderi and the exquisite barodashalu, a handwoven paithani-meetsbanarasi fabric once woven and reserved specifically for generations of Gaekwad women.
“Coming from a background in the arts, and having travelled the world and visited museums, one begins to realise the value of what we have back home,” she says.
“As a newly-wed, I was also looking for my purpose. How could I make myself useful? That’s where it began. I thought I could be a bridge—a mediator. I also realised that the chanderi I was seeing in Delhi was different from the ones I encountered in my in-laws’ home. The way they wore it, and their regard for the fabric, was completely different from what was happening in the emporiums of Delhi,” explains Gaekwad, whose access to a royal archive filled with heritage saris helped her understand just how far the value of a historically significant fabric had declined.
In an effort to revive and elevate chanderi to its historic status as the fabric of choice for coronations and royal births, Gaekwad initiated programmes to reintroduce artisans to archival textiles dating back 100 years.
“We were able to show (the artisans) what their ancestors had made because my motherin-law, my family, had preserved these archives. Unfortunately, the artisans had no reference points. While they created these fabrics for royal families, they weren’t able to retain any pieces themselves. We invested heavily in research and development, and soon the process of recreating those lost weaves began. Today, there’s a deep sense of pride in being able to replicate the craftsmanship of their forebears,” she says.
Heirlooms Reinvented
Maharani Radhikaraje Gaekwad is among the first Indian royals to speak publicly about, and document, the historic family collections of textiles and jewellery.
At designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s 25th anniversary show earlier this year, Gaekwad made a statement in a centuryold black cotton navari paithani sari with a gold-thread pallu from her family archive, paired with an 11-strand necklace, emerald bhikbali earrings and antique Basra pearl jhumkis, a regal nod to India’s lost splendour.
“There are certain pieces of jewellery with deep sentimental value,” she says, pointing to an Art Deco Cartier tiara of rubies and diamonds, worn as a tiara and necklace. Once owned by Chimnabai II—the second wife of Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III and a champion of women’s rights—the tiara is part of a storied legacy. As detailed in Royal Patronage, Power and Aesthetics in Princely India by Angma Dey Jhala, Chimnabai supported Indian artisans by taking them to Europe to study jewellery-making and strengthen gem trade.
Many of her pieces, including an Asscher-cut diamond ring Gaekwad now wears, date to the 1920s and ’30s. “I have a great regard for the pieces. There is an intrinsic value to how they were worn historically; they were handed down to me, and that’s how I enjoy them,” she adds.
However, there are several pieces that cannot be worn in their original form, because they are extremely ceremonial, she explains. “They were made 100-150 years ago for a specific purpose. Fortunately, some of them are convertible and can be worn as brooches today,” she says.
Gaekwad has spoken about her heirlooms at Saffronart in Mumbai, and international museums. “It’s an academic interest,” she says. Some pieces, like the Asscher ring, only revealed their origins after she consulted a jewellery historian.
A remarkable moment came when Francesca Cartier Brickell, great-granddaughter of Jacque Cartier and author of the book The Cartiers: The Untold Story of the Family Behind the Jewelry Empire, arrived with an old sketch of a sarpech (ornament for the turban). “It was identical to the one in our archive,” she recalls. “Louis Cartier had visited us several times and had sketched pieces that were later redesigned. That kind of continuity is incredible.”
For Gaekwad, legacy isn’t locked in a vault. It lives, whispered through heirlooms, and reimagined with style.
