Overall: 35cm (14in) x 25cm (9.8in)
Presentation portrait Maharaj Sadul Singh of Bikaner, later 21st and last ruling Maharaja of Bikaner, in the uniform of the Bikaner State Forces and wearing back badge of a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) (1922), George V Jubilee Medal (1935) and George VI Coronation Medal (1937). Contained in an Indian silver rectangular frame with ribbon and reeded border and Bikaner armorial (Arms: Barry of six Gules and Or, three falcons close Argent, each charged with a trident Gules. Crest: On a helmet affrontée, lambrequined Gules and Or, a green tree. Supporters: Two leopards Sable. Motto: JAYA JAIGALDAR BADSAH (Victory to the Emperor Jaigaldar). Maker’s marks of SK and BKN. Wood easel backed and glazed.
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HH Maharaja Lieutenant-General Sir Sadul Singh GCSI, GCIE, KStJ, CVO (1902-1950) was the eldest surviving son of General HH Sir Ganga Singh, 20th Maharaja of Bikaner. He was a Page of Honour at the coronation of King George V and attended the King-Emperor at the Delhi Durbar of 1911. Commissioned Honorary Lieutenant in the Bikaner State Forces in 1918, he accompanied his father to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, and under his father’s guidance served in the administration of Bikaner from 1920 to 1925, attending the 1924 meeting of the League of Nations. During the Second World War he travelled extensively visiting the Imperial and State forces including the 4th Indian Division and 31st Indian Armoured Division, the Bikaner Camel Corps (Ganga Risala) on deployment in Sind, the Sadul Light Infantry in Persia, and the Bijay Battery fighting the Japanese on the Assam-Burma front. On his succession in 1943 as ruler of Bikaner he enacted a progressive five year development plan of welfare and economic reforms. At Indian independence he was among the first princes to accede to the Dominion of India and is thus seen as one of the co-architects of Indian unity. However as one biographer points out ‘Maharaja Sadul Singh took Bikaner into India only after he had threatened to join Pakistan unless the Partition boundary through the Punjab was redrawn at the last minute in India’s favour, for the source of the essential Gang Canal water laying the areas of Ferozepur which would have gone to Pakistan. Mountbatten agreed thereby adding to Pakistan’s sense of injustice’. The Maharajah died at his English home in St Ann’s Hill, Chertsey, Surrey.