Raja Ravi Varma worked at a period when the terms of art itself were being renegotiated.
The record lists Raja Ravi Varma as Indian painter from Kerala (1848–1906).
Raja Ravi Varma was born at Kilimanoor in 1848. His recorded nationality is Kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor. He trained at University College Thiruvananthapuram.
The nineteenth century broke the academy's authority: independent exhibitions, dealers and the beginnings of modernism.
He worked as painter and creator.
His best-known work is Shakuntala. An artist's reputation moves with taste, but the work stays exactly where it was left.
That the work was made in Kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.
Raja Ravi Varma died in 1906, aged 58. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.
Achievements
- Notable work: Shakuntala
