CUTCH. A fine cabinet card of the Maharao of Cutch by Vuccino

A fine 6½ x 4¼ ins cabinet card of H. H. Maharao Kengarji III of Cutch [now written as Kutch] by P. Vuccino & Co., Medow Street, Fort, Bombay, one of the most fashionable photographers in Bombay and Poona in the late 19th century.  It shows the Maharao full  length, wearing Indian court dreess with pearls and jewels and holding a sword of tulwar style with a finely chased hilt, presumably gold. A portrait of him in Reed’s The Royal Tour in India of 1906 shows him, page 35, in very similar dress standing and his hand obscuring the hilt of the sword. In that portrait he wears the same pearls with different jewels and he also wears the breast star of the G.C.I.E. which he was awarded on 30th June 1886. He looks a little older in the photograph in the book. Cutch was a 17 gun salute state.              jan16/2

Maharao is one of the alternative versions of the usual title of Maharaja used by most senior rulers. Kota used the same title and Udaipur used that of Maharana whiled a few other states, such as Jaisalmer, used the title Maharawal.