In 1902, Maharani Sunity Devi sat for a formal state photograph at the Lafayette Studios in London. The young Hindu queen of the eastern Indian kingdom of Cooch Behar was richly clothed in the apparel she had worn earlier that year for the coronation of King-Emperor Edward VII. Her self-fashioned style reflected both the aesthetic norms of empire and indigenous courtly Indian traditions of ornamentation. On her head she wore a diamond-encrusted tiara made by a European jeweller, which at that time Indian rulers wore in lieu of formal crowns. She complemented it with a high-collared, white satin gown designed by a French dressmaker, embroidered in gold thread, wrapped around her body like a sari. As for jewels, she radiated diamond- and pearl-encrusted bangles, rings and a heavy necklace that combined European and Indic motifs. Most significantly, she displayed prominently the Badge of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India on her chest – an honour given to esteemed Indian women for their service to the colonial Raj.

Sunity Devi herself was a woman who bridged various identities – Western and Eastern, metropolitan and regional. She was born into a prominent Hindu family of Calcutta intellectuals, the Sens, who were advocates of women's education, widow remarriage and increasing the age of marital consent for boys and girls. Her father, Keshub Chandra Sen, the leader of the Brahmo Samaj movement, founded by Raja Ram Mohun Roy, was considered to be the Martin Luther of Hinduism.