Suniti Devi, Maharani of Cooch Behar (1864-1932) was the daughter of Keshub Chandra Sen – one of the leading lights of a westernising and rationalising movement within Hinduism.

Her marriage to the young Maharaja of Cooch Behar had only gone ahead when the reforming Hindus of her father’s organisation were assured that the wedding ceremony would be expunged of its idolatrous portions.

In this image from 1902 the Maharani wears the gown of white satin (made by ‘a French milliner’) with 'Empire' wreath design embroidered in gold, ostrich feather fan, and tiara which she wore to the Coronation of King Edward VII on 9 August 1902.

Many Indian royals spent time in England and to overcome opposition from the viceregal administration they presented doctors’ notes stipulating the need for cool air for health reasons!

The Cooch Behar royal couple were frequent visitors to England, with their four sons at school at Eaton, nevertheless it was ground-breaking at the time for an Indian lady of high rank to wear structured European clothing.

The fact that no images of the Maharani were reproduced in the press might indicate that the public in Cooch Behar were not yet ready to see just how westernised the Maharani had become.

During her stay in Cooch Behar in 1896, Daisy was convinced that the Maharani guessed nothing of her husband’s feelings for Daisy. Nevertheless, she blamed the Maharaja’s unhappiness on the Maharani and noted “she is the most discontented woman I ever met.” In her autobiography, the Maharani for her part lists erroneously “the Pless couple” among a long list of royalties who visited Cooch Behar for the hunting but carefully points out, when recounting her experience at the coronation of 1902, that "I stood between Princess Frederica of Hanover and Princess Daisy of Pless... I heard that my tiara was voted the prettiest there."

The Maharani outlived her husband by over twenty years and lived to see her first son reign for only two years before he drank himself to death in 1913.

She visited the Lafayette studio on at least three more occasions, in 1902, 1910 and 1921 when she had a series of portraits made, wearing the traditional Indian widow’s white and with her jewels removed, for her Autobiography of an Indian Princess.