Complex conservation treatment for Raja Ravi Varma embellished oleographs

Tue 26 Aug 2025

QAGOMA has embarked on a world-leading conservation and research exchange with colleagues in India to document and conserve a collection of Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906) embellished oleographs.

Ravi Varma was a renowned Indian artist whose work gave vivid form to Hindu gods and goddesses, aristocrats and maharajahs, as well as scenes from everyday life. His works opened access to images of the deities at a time when temples were reserved for the elite.

Watch | Bridging cultures through conservation

Originally a painter popular with the royal courts, Ravi Varmi established a printing press in Mumbai in 1894 with imported German machines and techniques, enabling him to develop high-quality prints based on his paintings.

By the early 1900s, images of the oleographs produced by the Raja Ravi Varma Press permeated Indian popular culture and the lives of everyday people, appearing on calendars, match-box labels, posters, postcards and advertisements, and influencing the development of Indian cinema and contemporary art.

Before conservation treatment

The collection of 48 uniquely embroidered Raja Ravi Varma oleographs — prints designed to resemble oil paintings — include some of the artist’s most iconic images, printed by the Press from the late 1800s and continuing after his death. They feature Hindu gods and goddesses in scenes adapted from mythological stories and epic poems such as the Mahābhārata, the Ramayana and the Puranas. The works depict deities such as Lakshmi, Sarasvati, Krishna and Ram and reflect a fusion of Ravi Varma’s European art training with a purely Indian sensibility and iconography.

Many of these works were originally displayed in private domestic settings, in devotional puja rooms and spaces for worship. Some have been lovingly hand-embellished with brightly coloured cloth, beads and zardozi embroidery. Printed and subsequently embellished a century or more ago, these works require significant and complex conservation treatment to stabilise their condition.

Once conserved through this ground-breaking conservation exchange, a selection of Ravi Varma’s Press oleographs will be shown in the exhibition ‘The God of Small Things: Faith and Popular Culture’.

‘The God of Small Things: Faith and Popular Culture’ explores the omnipresence of faith in the mundane and extraordinary alike. Drawing its title from Arundhati Roy’s 1997 Booker Prize–winning novel, the exhibition delves into the intersection between devotional imagery and popular culture, capturing the different conceptions and expressions of the divine as a living part of everyday life.

Alongside Ravi Varma’s twentieth-century oleographs are works from India and across Asia that represent varied expressions of religious iconography, shrines and spaces of worship. The artworks also reflect – across a range of geographic and religious contexts – the presence of faith in everyday objects and its enduring influence on so many forms of creative expression.

After conservation treatment

Watch | Take a look at 'The God of Small Things: Faith and Popular Culture'

The God of Small Things: Faith and Popular Culture
20 September 2025 – 5 October 2026
Queensland Art Gallery
Gallery 5 & 6 (Henry and Amanda Bartlett Galleries)
Brisbane, Australia
Free entry

The singular collection has been acquired by the Gallery through the Henry and Amanda Bartlett Trust in 2024.

QAGOMA is grateful to have secured a significant Maitri grant through the Australian Government and administered by the Centre for Australia-India Relations to support this world leading research and conservation project, which will include digital storytelling.

Staff travel to India will enable the exchange of specialist knowledge and research and conservation techniques with colleagues at the Museum of Art and Photography in Bengaluru, and the study of works by Raja Ravi Varma across India.

This cultural exchange will be an opportunity to connect with global and diaspora audiences and be instrumental in conserving these beautiful works for future generations.

QAGOMA’s conservation and research exchange is supported by the Centre for Australia-India Relations. QAGOMA is proud to be a recipient of a Centre for Australia-India Relations Maitri grant.