Padmini, the Lotus Lady - Raja Ravi Varma Art Print

$25USD
  • Printed in USA, UK, EU & AUS
  • Archival grade fine art paper and canvas
  • Giclée printing stays vibrant up to 100 years
  • FSC® paper & wood + non-toxic pigment inks

Art Print or Canvas?
Size
🛎️ Made-to-order
🏳️‍🌈 Queer business
🌳 Plants a tree
❤️ Satisfaction guaranteed
American Express
Apple Pay
Bancontact
Bizum
Google Pay
iDEAL Wero
Mastercard
MB WAY
PayPal
Satispay
Shop Pay
Union Pay
Visa

🔒 Shopify Secure Checkout

Sanskrit erotology classified women into four types, and the Padmini sat highest — skin soft as mustard flower, voice a cuckoo's, walk the swaying gait of a wild swan.

Her pallu floats with kinetic theatricality — academic European drapery study married to bhava expression from classical Indian aesthetics. Magenta water lilies cluster at her ankles. Behind, monsoon-fed jungle blackens. The sky bleeds cantaloupe into chalk-blue, a Konkan evening pressed between paper and pigment.

Raja Ravi Varma, the Travancore court painter who reshaped Indian visual culture between his royal commissions and his oleograph empire, gives that taxonomy a body. His Padmini steps across a pond's edge at twilight, rose-pink drapery rendered in the layered stone-printing of late nineteenth-century chromolithography, each color pulled separately at the Ravi Varma Press. 

Origin Story

Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906) was born into the aristocratic family of Kilimanoor Palace, Travancore — present-day Kerala — where charcoal sketches on palace walls announced a prodigious talent. Trained in watercolour under palace painter Rama Swamy Naidu and in oils under British portraitist Theodore Jenson, he became one of the first Indian artists to master European realist and naturalist oil painting techniques. His canvases fused Western academic precision with the devotional warmth of Hindu iconography, clothing goddesses and epic heroines — Shakuntala, Damayanti, and characters from the Mahabharata and Ramayana — in luminous saris of unmistakable Indian sensibility.

His decision to mass-reproduce paintings as affordable oleographs gave millions — including those excluded from temples — their first vivid image of the divine. Recognised with the Kaisar-i-Hind Gold Medal by Viceroy Lord Curzon and celebrated at Vienna and the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Varma's legacy remains electrifying and contested: the painter who democratised Indian devotion and irrevocably shaped the nation's visual imagination.

Automatic Discount Magic
Any 2 artworks = 10% off
Any 3 = 15% off
Any 5 = 20% off

Art Print or Canvas?
Size
Product information

Framed Art Prints

How to Hang your Artwork

1. Vertical

Use the sawtooth hanger at the top middle on the back of the frame and hang it on a single screw or nail.

How to Hang your Artwork

2. Horizontal

Hang the two sawtooth hangers on two screws or nails at the same heightPut two screws or nails in the wall at the same height, spaced the same distance apart as the two sawtooth hangers, then hang your print on them.

How to Hang your Artwork

Framed Canvas

How to Hang your Artwork

1. D-rings (most secure)

Screw a D-ring onto the back of the frame on the left and right, both at the same height. A ruler helps here. Then put two screws in the wall where you want your canvas, level with each other and spaced the same distance apart as the D-rings. A spirit level makes this easier. Finally, hook the D-rings onto the screws.

How to Hang your Artwork

2. Straight onto screws

Keep it simple: put two screws in the wall at the same height and rest the inner lip at the top of the back of the frame on them.

How to Hang your Artwork

1. Cost

Free shipping to Continental USA, Canada, UK, EU, AUS, NZ & more: see full list here.

2. Produced on Demand

Printed after you purchase at print labs across the USA, UK, EU & AUS. Produced, quality checked, packed with care and handed to trusted shipping carriers within 72-96 hours on average.

3. Production + Shipping =

USA: 4-9 days • Canada: 5-12 days • UK: 4-9 days • EU: 5-10 days • AUS: 4-9 days • NZ: 5-12 days • Rest of the world: 3-4 weeks

4. Shipped with Love

Every package tracked from A to B to You.
Sent carbon neutral at no extra charge.
Peace of mind your money's being kind.

More on orders & shipping.

30 Day Returns

1. You're welcome to open a return / exchange request within 30 days of your order's delivery. All items for return must be delivered back in their original condition, with their original packaging included.

2. No guarantees your return will be approved if you send items back before the approval of your return request.

3. No returns, refunds or exchanges on discounted or sale items.

Read the step-by-step returns process.

Fine Art Prints

True-to-life colors for a hundred years of daydreams

Ships in 2-4 days
Velvety matte art paper
Heavyweight 200gsm fine art paper. Smooth, clean finish. Naturally white tone. Acid-free to resist yellowing and deterioration.
Classic wood frames
Chevron-cut frame made from solid FSC®-certified sustainable wood. Ultra-clear Perspex glazing. Delivered ready to hang.
3 framing styles
Framed art prints can be shipped with no border, a slim border, or set in a classic acid-free mat. Museum-quality, however you style it.

Framed Canvas

Alive with multidimensional shadows, highlights and contrasts

Ships in 2-4 days
Artist-grade cotton canvas
38mm cotton canvas, ideal for photography, reproductions and impactful graphics. Luxurious, matte surface delivers depth and detail with outstanding clarity.
Premium float frames
The thin frame sits slightly away from the edge of the canvas, creating an elegant, gallery-worthy floating border.
Care in every detail
Canvas stretched over FSC®-certified, knot-free European pine. Milled with a curved profile to prevent pressure marks and surface cracks.

Happy Customers

Your Latest Loves