Sri Ganga Singh Bahadur, the Maharaja of Bikaner, 1880 - 1943. Statesman (Study for portrait in Statesman of the Great War, National Portrait Gallery, London), James Guthrie, circa 1920

Sri ganga singhji bahadur succeeded his father at the age of seven and assumed full powers as a ruler at eighteen. He commanded the bikaner camel corps as part of the british forces in china in 1901 and, by 1917, had been appointed major-general in the british army. With the outbreak of the first world war in 1914, the maharajah’s military career reached its peak and he was twice mentioned in dispatches. He was one of the three representatives of india at the imperial war cabinet of 1917 and at the peace conference of 1919, and, in the peace years, led the indian delegations to the assemblies of the league of nations. This oil sketch was made by guthrie in preparation for his great commission ‘statesmen of the great war’. Object Type: painting. Genre: portrait. Date: circa 1920. Dimensions: height: 111.2 cm (43.7 in); width: 86.8 cm (34.1 in). Medium: oil on canvas. Depicted People: Ganga Singh. Collection: Scottish National Gallery. Sri Ganga Singh Bahadur, the Maharaja of Bikaner - Detail