During British rule, Indian artists found patrons in Indian kings such as Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad 111 of Baroda who invited Raja Ravi Verma, one of India’s greatest artists of the time, to paint at his court. Ravi Verma, from the princely state of Travancore, first came to Baroda in 1881 to paint the ceremonial portrait of Sayajirao 111. Subsequently, the ruler commissioned fourteen mythological paintings for the Laxmi Vilas Palace in Baroda. Ravi Verma’s painting displayed at the Baroda Museum and the palace are complex, well-executed and exquisitely beautiful. His representation of mythological has become a part of the Indian Imagination of the epics and his paintings have inspired not just calendar art but also Indian Cinema and theatre.