Portrait of Maharani Indira Devi of Cooch Behar

After his studies in Brussels, Jonniaux established himself as a portrait painter in Paris and London where he painted prominent society figures and members of the European nobility and royal families. Indira Devi (1892-1968) was the daughter of the Gaekwar and Maharani of Baroda. While betrothed to the Maharaja of Gwalior, she met and fell in love with the younger brother of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, Jitendra Narayan, and despite ferocious opposition from her parents, married him in London in 1913. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s she was a leading social figure in Anglo-Indian society. She was celebrated for her good looks and with the support of her mother she opposed the Purdah system of female seclusion, often appearing in public unveiled. Her eldest son assumed full powers as ruler of Cooch Behar in 1936 and from then on she spent the majority of her time in Europe, especially in London, where she popularised the sari as a mode of dress. Her second daughter, Gayatri, became the Maharani of Jaipur and achieved the largest-ever personal majority in the 1962 Indian General Election.