On Raja Ravi Varma's 175th birth anniversary, a watch collection inspired by his influential paintings

Hans Damayanti, from the Raja Ravi Varma Collection by Jaipur Watch Company. The collection uses about 14 Ravi Varma paintings. Prices start at Rs 65,000.

What would Raja Ravi Varma make of Jaipur Watch Company’s (JWC) Raja Ravi Varma collection if he were alive today? The artist would have loved the idea, says Sachin Kaluskar. “He was not just a painter, but also an astute businessman. He was a big brand himself,” says the Vadodara-based art entrepreneur who owns one of the largest collections of Varma’s oleographs in the country.

Radha in the Moonlight

Several of the artist’s popular works adorn either the limited-edition collection’s dials or the inner surface of the sapphire crystal, with the miniaturization, kind of, buffing their ubiquity. The collection’s release couldn't have come at a better time. This year marks the 175th birth anniversary of the artist-entrepreneur whose works, from paintings of deities and studio-style portraits of kings and noblemen, to the lithographs that he printed at his eponymous press democratized art and massively influenced popular culture.

Like the brand’s other watch lines, the Ravi Varma watch is not intended to be “someone’s first watch”, says Gaurav Mehta, who founded JWC in 2013.

“This is never going to be a person’s first watch. I see this being bought by people who love Indian art, who love products made in India, a watch collector who is probably looking for something different in his collection,” says Mehta who ploughed a lonely furrow building India’s first microwatch brand for most of the last decade. JWC debuted with watches with rare coins from the colonial era as dials and its lines include watches with engravings, pichwai art, and, among others, hand-painted watches. The company, which is funded by startup accelerator Marwari Catalysts and Dexter Angels, reported a turnover of Rs 4.5 crore last year. JWC’s flagship store is located in Jaipur’s upscale C-Scheme; it also has a boutique in New Delhi, and Mehta says he will soon be opening stores at the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur and Koregaon Park in Pune. “Online retail has always worked well for us, but sales at our brick-and-mortar stores have been a revelation,” says Mehta who discloses that next project will be a take on Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso.

Varah Avatar.

Art-inspired watches

Art has often inspired watchmakers and featured on the dials of watches from a variety of brands. You could choose, for instance, from Swatch’s recently launched Art Journey series that celebrates the work of Roy Lichtenstein, René Magritte, Sandro Botticelli, and Katsushika Hokusai, or maybe consider Vacheron Constantin’s Metiers D’ Art collection that uses miniature enamel paintings among other highly intricate decorative techniques.

Mehta says there was no question of using handpainted dials for the Raja Ravi Varma collection, because “who can paint like Ravi Varma did?” Besides, JWC already had handpainted watches in its range with its pichwai art collection as well as watches that featured divine, and abstract images. “I was clear that the collection had to have the artist’s original work. So we imported a special machine from Japan that allows us to recreate his oleographs with colours and tones similar to the original on the watch face,” says Mehta who used high-resolution digital images sourced from Kaluskar for the watches and tied up with the Kilimanoor Palace Art Trust, which is managed by the artist’s descendant, Rama Varma Thampuran. (Ravi Varma was born into an aristocratic family in Kilimanoor, in Kerala, in 1848.)

Each 40mm watch, which is powered by a Miyota movement, carries a certificate of authenticity signed by Rama Varma Thampuran. The watches use either a disc or a traditional three-hand set-up to tell the time and the crown is set with a sapphire stone. The strap is made of nylon with a synthetic leather base. Prices start at Rs 65,000. The collection uses about 14 Ravi Varma paintings, but if we had to pick one it would be the ‘Radha in the Moonlight’.