This anthology frames the story of Baroda’s visual culture from the early 18th century to present times along the themes of provenance and cosmopolitanism. Baroda’s sphere of art production from the princely through to the contemporary firmly establishes it as a recognizable provenance. Simultaneously, a wide inclusion of local, regional and foreign ideas lends the provenance a cosmopolitan character: early artists, craftsmen and photographers engage with Sayajirao Gaekwad III; the royal patron in turn represents them at international exhibitions; itinerant builders and European architects contribute to a fast-modernizing state; artists and teachers set new directions for a Faculty of Fine Arts in post-Independence Baroda; patrons, gallerists, scholars and artists shape contemporary Baroda’s artistic culture.

The writers approach Baroda from different vantage points: as first-person accounts, as art critics, anthropologists and historians. Together they contribute new approaches to art history, and provide a non-Western case study of provenance and cosmopolitanism.