This portrait of H .I.H. Princess Khadija Hayriya Aisha Durr-i-Shahvar Sultana (1914-2006), the daughter of the last Ottoman Caliph Abdu’l-Majid Khan II was taken by Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton (1904-1980). Cecil Beaton was an English photographer, renowned for his Society portraits that are believed to capture the people of his times at their best.
The Princess came to India as a young bride in 1931 to Azam Jah the Prince of Berar, son and heir apparent to the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad Mir Osman Ali Khan. Popularly known as the Princess of Berar, this picture is understood to have been taken in March 1944. The Princess’s saris were designed in Paris and later in Bombay by specialist embroiderers. A seven strand pearl necklace in the Nizam’s Jewels collection could possibly be the one seen here.
Beaton was impressed by her “sensational” looks, the “climate of restfulness and serenity” she created about her, as well as by her love for philosophy and literature, her proficiency in many languages and the “Ottoman perfection of her taste”.
Cecil Beaton took several other pictures of the Princess many of which are in the National Portrait Gallery at London. This image is at the Imperial War Museum, London – IWM (IB 783).