In a studio filled with the hum of printers and the scent of archival paper, Parakram Kakkar (pictured) examines Three Princesses from Mysore, a portrait by Thomas Hickey, which marks a colonial turning point. After Tipu Sultan’s defeat, the East India Company introduced the smallpox vaccine to secure its rule. Queen Lakshmi Ammani, widowed by the disease, ensured vaccination for princesses. By 1807, over a million Indians had been inoculated, with the portrait symbolising British use of art to shape India’s image.
Such paintings, housed in museums abroad like London’s National Portrait Gallery, remain largely inaccessible to Indians. Kakkar’s Maazi Merchant, launched in early 2023, aims to change that. The company’s stated aim is housed in the name itself: ‘Maazi’ is an Urdu word that means the past, or history. And it wants to make this ‘past’ accessible. How? By making high-quality prints of these Indian artworks—Mughal miniatures, East India Company paintings like Three Princesses, and engravings, among many others—and sell them here in India. And they are the first ones to do so.
For Kakkar, reclaiming India’s art isn’t just about reproducing images—it’s about dismantling colonial gatekeeping. Many of the works Maazi Merchant revives were commissioned by European patrons: East India Company officers documenting the land they ruled, botanists chronicling native plants, or British travellers capturing courtly life. “These pieces were painted by Indian artists, but their stories were filtered through foreign patrons,” Kakkar explains. “Today, by returning them to Indian homes, we are reclaiming not just the works but also the narrative.”
But in making these artworks accessible to Indians here, haven’t existing copyright laws been a hindrance? “Courts have repeatedly held that such works belong to the public,” says Kakkar, a lawyer by training. And yet, major custodians of heritage art, including the British Museum and National Portrait Gallery, continue to assert restrictions over digitised works, often placing innovation at odds with gatekeeping.
At Maazi Merchant, Kakkar is determined to challenge this status quo. “Preserving art isn’t about locking it behind licensing agreements,” he says. “These works belong to the public domain and should remain there, free for everyone to access and celebrate.”
Negotiating the Return of India’s Heritage
In order to build Maazi, Kakkar and his team had to go deep into dialogues with western institutions that hold vast collections of South Asian art. “For instance,” he shares, “the Bodleian Library at Oxford University houses thousands of works that rightfully belong in Indian museums.”
The company reached out to the Bodleian to secure access to these archives. The library obliged, sharing a significant portion of its collection. Yet there was a catch: the images were licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 framework, which permits their use only with attribution and prohibits commercial activity.
“We respectfully disagree with this restriction,” Kakkar says firmly. “It contradicts existing intellectual property laws and the very ethos of preservation. These artworks are in the public domain, and they should not be confined by licensing terms that stifle their reach.”
Most importantly, as Kakkar points out, the issue is also about pricing. “The prices are quite high. For instance, just to photograph a print from say the British Museum will cost you at least £85. Then comes licensing, which is even more oppressive. Such high pricing is forbidding for most Indians.”
Which is why, at Maazi Merchant, the pricing of these priceless works of art is low. For example, an archival print of Three Princesses would be about Rs 1,899, with various upgrades available, going up to Rs 7,499, with a white cedar cherry hardwood box frame and museum grade canvas and a larger size of 19 by 24.
And Kakkar’s prodigious output has begun to find resonance far and wide. Abhinit Khanna, Art Advisor & Project Specialist at the Reliance Industries Ltd, was one of Maazi Merchant’s earliest supporters. “When I first saw the prints, I was mesmerised,” Khanna says. “The history, quality of giclee prints, the richness of the colour—it was as though I was looking at the original works of art from the 18th & 19th century.”
Khanna, who has been at the forefront of curating art, producing exhibitions, introduced Kakkar’s work to his creative team at Reliance, paving the way for a landmark collaboration. “We were looking for something meaningful, something uniquely Indian for the Jamnagar pre-wedding celebrations of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant,” Khanna explains. “Maazi Merchant gave us exactly that—a connection to our artistic roots.”
At the star-studded event, curated by Khanna, Maazi Merchant’s works were displayed across grand spaces, grouped into themed categories: still life compositions, studies of flora and fauna, and striking depictions of royal courts. “The response was incredible,” Khanna recalls. “Guests were fascinated by the history behind each print—it was as though the art brought India’s rich history back to life.”
And not only from clients—which range from Reliance to the luxury hotel Gobindgarh by Godwin, Jaisalmer, to even celebrity designers like Nafisa Rachel William, but even art curators too are excited about what this potentially means for the Indian art world at large. Phalguni Kapoor Guliani, an independent art curator, points out that as a curator, it is part of one’s job to deal with a thousand artworks. “One of the most difficult choices in my profession is choosing what art to live with. Maazi Merchant’s pieces, curated expertly from across the galleries worldwide, and dealing exclusively with historical South Asian art, are literally pieces of history you own, adorning your walls,” she says.
Kapoor has an interesting story connected to how she encountered the works of Maazi Merchant. They had just moved into their new home. "We had just moved into one of those quintessential Nehruvian bungalows from the 1950s, and with gardens front and back not a brick had been changed — a rarity in Delhi today ! The house had been built around when India was just coming into itself as a republic, and we wanted a piece that spoke to this idea of something radical being born on the heels of a sometimes brutal colonial past," she says. That is when a friend of hers gifted her the painting, Three Princesses.
"A lot of people have asked why this, instead of the other more prized works in our collection, and the reasons are threefold. First, there was the honouring of the architecture of the house that we wanted to achieve. The history of India is built upon these radical acts of bravery that might at first appear as tools of acquiescence to Empire, but show equally the subtle resilience of its actors to British propaganda of the time. Secondly — and this is important to my practice and what I seek to do with my own legacy in art-making — that this is a painting of three women. History often forgets the sacrifices women make for art, for kingdoms, for nation," she adds. Therefore, it was a natural choice because these brave women had to be commemorated.
Reclamation
At Maazi Merchant, reviving these works involves a blend of technology, artistry, and diplomacy. Each piece undergoes meticulous restoration and reproduction. Simultaneously, Kakkar’s team negotiates access with archives across North America and Europe, chipping away at barriers to heritage art. Once a print is finished, they are housed safely in a warehouse in Delhi, thorough which they are shipped to clients and customers across the world. “We are relying now through the e-commerce route, and we have our own website through which a bulk of orders come. Some top clients reach out directly to us to secure a curation,” Kakkar says.
For Guliani, these artworks are not only priceless, but because now they are in India, and in the hands of Indians, that itself is a powerful statement.
"When I wake to this painting every morning, I am reminded of their courage to strive in the face of adversity. But above all I am reminded of Parakram’s words — that history belongs to us all," she emphatically says.
As Kakkar continues to push against institutional gatekeeping, Maazi Merchant aims to reclaim more than just art—it wants to reclaim pride, agency, and ownership over history. Each print, framed and displayed, is a quiet declaration: This is ours, and we’re taking it back.
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