Scenes from "Ramayana" at the Maharaja palace in Jodhpur, India

In Jodhpur in Rajasthan, in the hall of the fabulously opulent palace of an Indian Maharaja, in a palace that is considered the largest private residence in Asia, a Polish artist depicted the scene of the triumph of the ideal ruler Rama, and his faithful servant in the form of a monkey. In the 1940s the Indian Prince Umaid Singh commissioned Warsaw-born Stefan Norblin to decorate his newly built palace.
Norblin had fled Poland after the outbreak of World War II. He made his way to India via Romania, Turkey and Iraq. The commission to decorate a palace in Jodhpur was the culmination of his career in India, where from 1941 he painted oil paintings and wall decorations and designed luxurious palace interiors, combining the elegance and splendor of art déco with motifs of Indian history and mythology.
In the enormous palace of Maharaja Umaid Singh he did a series of six paintings decorating the most representative Oriental Hall. The vaulted ceiling of the hall is golden in color, and Norblin's compositions, colorful, full of splendor and dynamism, are an expression of the style developed by the artist, which combines modern Western aesthetics with the richness of Indian traditions. The paintings illustrate the story described in the ancient Indian epic "Ramayana", of the god Rama and his wife Sita, kidnapped by the demon king Ravana. The scene of Rama's triumph in retrieving Sita crowns the cycle. The monkey that accompanies Rama is his faithful servant and companion Hanuman. In the pantheon of Hindu deities Hanuman is revered to this day and epitomizes strength, heroism and faithful devotion.
After completing his work in Jodhpur, Stefan Norblin settled in the United States. His works created in India were hardly known either in Poland, or the USA. They were discovered for the West on the 15th anniversary of the construction of the Maharaja's palace, attended by guests from all over the world. Now the palace interior, with Norblin's decorations restored by Polish conservators, are open to the public.

Projects of POLONIKA Institute
2018 - Strategic Program POPULARIZATION - animated historical film "Eternal Fire"
2018 - Strategic Program POPULARIZATION - documentary film "Ramayana from the Palace in Jodhpur. Bringing back the Unknown Works of Stefan Norblin
2019 - Stategic Program POPULARIZATION - aniamted film for childerm from the series Polo and Nika: Palace in Jodhpur