Overall: 38cm (14.9in) x 25cm (9.8in)
Provenance: Air Marshal Sir Charles Carr (1891-1971), AOC-in-C India, 1946
Gelatin threequarter length portrait of the Maharaja Bahadur Singh in Probyn’s Horse service dress uniform. Autographed signed in blue ink to the lower image ‘Bahadur Singh / 1946’. Photographer’s signature in pencil to the lower mount of court photographer L.O. Kinsey of Connaught Place, New Delhi and Simla. Contained in a glazed Indian silver presentation frame with arched top applied with the arms granted to Maharaja Ram Singh of Bundi in 1877; viz - Arms: Or, a demi-man Sable issuant of flames holding in his dexter a sword and in his sinister a bow all proper, in chief a dagger of the second sheated Vert fess-wise over seven arrows in sheaf of the second. Crest: On a helmet affrontée, lambrequined Or and Sable, a dexter hand holding in bend a kutar proper, hilted Or. Supporters: Two cows proper. Motto: ‘Sri Ranges Bhakt’ (Devoted to Lord Ranges).
Maharaja Bahadur Singh, MC (1920-1977) was the 28th last official ruler of the Princely State of Bundi. Educated at Mayo College at Ajmer, he received an emergency commission in the Indian Army in November 1942 and served with Probyn's Horse in Burma in 1944-45. On 2 March 1945 during the advance on Meiktila, he won the Military Cross while in command of a troop of Sherman tanks supporting an infantry attack on a fortified village. Despite the determined efforts of Japanese suicide squads armed with Shitotsubakurai, Bahadur Singh successfully directed the action from an open turret while under petrol bomb attack. He was recalled from the Burma front to ascend the throne of Bundi upon the death of Ishwari Singh the following month. He acceded his state of Bundi to the Dominion of India on 7 April 1949, yet held the title of Maharaja of Bundi, until the entitlements and official recognition were abolished by the Government of India through the 26th amendment to the Constitution of India in 1971, but remained the titular ruler until his death.