Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The Victoria & Albert Museum’s spectacular new exhibition, “Maharaja: The Splendor of India’s Royal Courts” begins and ends with a means of transport.

At the start, the visitor is confronted by a regal Indian procession involving an elephant -- a full-scale model, not a real beast -- adorned with jewelry and sumptuous textiles, and bearing a silver howdah on its back.

At the end comes a gleaming Rolls-Royce commissioned by the crown prince of an Indian state in 1927. In between, there is a complex story of cultural fusion, plus a great quantity of eye- poppingly luxurious objects.

The Maharajas of the title were the rulers of Indian states who popped up all over the Indian subcontinent as the power of the Mughal Empire weakened in the mid-18th century.

Actually, as the exhibition hastens to explain, these were seldom known as “Maharaja,” a word meaning “great king.” Instead, they rejoiced in a multiplicity of titles -- Raja, Rana, Maharana, Nawab and Nizam -- as exotic as the ceremonial fans, umbrellas and yak-tail plumes borne by their attendants.

When Delhi was ransacked by the Shah of Iran in 1739, the Mughal emperors lost their treasury -- there is usually a financial aspect to political transformations -- and provincial governors took power. These were the Maharajas of the title.

Overdosing on Gems

They were wealthy and high-living. Many exhibits illustrate the pageantry and pleasures of palace life, though after seeing a few dozen necklaces, bracelets and turban ornaments studded with gleaming red and green gems like so many oriental sweets, you may start to feel that’s enough emeralds and rubies.

The Maharajas were also ruthless. One of the more sinister items on show is a “Baghnakha,” a neat little array of steel claws like a tiger’s, allegedly used by one ruler to disembowel a rival commander during a one-on-one negotiation. Modern politicians, though they may be tempted, seldom go that far.

Pretty soon another power-hungry and unscrupulous group appears: the Britons. They can be seen, wearing top hats and Napoleonic-era uniforms, in paintings of court life such as “Maharana Bhim Singh of Mewar Receiving British Officers” (c.1826). Soon, of course, the Maharajas found themselves deputizing for a new empire, ruled from London.

An extraordinary piece of film shown in the exhibition documents the Delhi Durbar of 1911, in which one by one the Nawabs and Maharanas paid homage to George V and Queen Mary as Emperor and Empress of India. As British influence increased, design values often declined.

Nawab’s Pompous Dishes

The earlier sections of the show, though containing few masterpieces, are full of sumptuous things: jeweled weapons, intricate miniatures of architecture and royal love-making, inlaid musical instruments, a gold-plated throne, rich textiles. Later, there are such items as a pompous Royal Worcester dinner service commissioned by the Nawab of Bahawalpur in 1911.

As a documentation of cultural blending, however, the last rooms are the most unexpected. Here you find, for example, the Maharaja Ranjitsinhji of Nawanagar, a dashing batsman, in his alternative role as captain of the Sussex County cricket team.

At the end, more evocative than that Rolls-Royce, are saris influenced by Parisian haute couture and photographs of the Maharaja of Indore and his wife taken by Man Ray (c.1930). From exotic magnificence to surrealist chic, it’s quite a journey. In some ways, the last stage is the most intriguing.

(Martin Gayford is chief art critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: Martin Gayford in London at martin.gayford@googlemail.com.

Last Updated: October 18, 2009 14:30 EDT