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Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906), is considered among the greatest painters in the history of Indian art for a number of aesthetic and broader social reasons. His works are held to be among the best examples of the fusion of European techniques with a purely Indian sensibility. While continuing the tradition and aesthetics of Indian art, his paintings employed the latest European academic art techniques of the day.

He was also notable for making affordable lithographs of his paintings available to the public, which greatly enhanced his reach and influence as a painter and public figure. On the advice of the then Dewan (Prime Minister) of Travancore, T. Madhava Rao, Ravi Varma started a lithographic printing press in Ghatkopar, Mumbai in 1894 and later shifted it to Malavli near Lonavala, Maharashtra in 1899. In particular, his depictions of Hindu deities and episodes from the epics and Puranas have received profound acceptance and are found, often as objects of worship, across the length and breadth of India.

Oleography or chromolithography is a unique technique used for making colour prints. This particular technique evolved from Lithography – which is basically a method of printing using a stone.

The method of oleography uses multiple stones - a separate stone for each colour and the process involved printing one colour over another. It was widely used for commercial purposes and was the most popular method for colour printing till the end of the 19th century. Oleo in Latin means oil. This technique used oil that gave the prints better quality. It is a chemical process based on rejection of oil by water. Depending on the number of colours present in the picture, skilled workers took months to complete a single oleograph.

Though the oleographs were mass produced at the time, many have been lost to time due to the acidic quality of the paper, India’s extreme weather conditions and a general lack of care. The few that have survived are now sought after as collectibles.