In 1988, Rajmata Subhangini Raje Gaekwad planned her daughter’s trousseau and was keen to gift her Chanderi sarees with real gold and silver zari, like the ones she and her royal ancestors had worn for years — gossamer to touch and bewitching to look at.

Rajmata Subhangini Raje Gaekwad and Maharani Radhika outside the Laxmi Vilas in Baroda

However, all that was available around her was synthetic fabric, their weaves stiff and graceless. She travelled to the town of Chanderi in Madhya Pradesh, found contractors who then got weavers to create sarees as per Rajmata’s taste. Years later, in 2003, when she came to Mumbai to exhibit the royal family’s collection of Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings, Gaekwad says she noticed how painstakingly the artist had painted her ancestors’ Chanderi silks.