The company Robert et Robert was founded by Charles Raleigh and Isidor Robert Schwobthaler in France in 1903, as a distributor of British, Danish and Italian films. In 1909 the company briefly branched into film production, before folding in 1913 (Abel, 1994, 38).

Eine Partie Fischfang Bei Dem Maharadscha von Kapurthala (1911) is a travelogue, one of the most popular genres of film in the early years of cinema. Travelogues developed from preceding media representations of travel, such as magic lantern shows, illustrated lectures, postcards and pictorial magazines, which had catered for what Jennifer Lynn Peterson terms a ‘19^th-century taste for the exotic’ (Peterson). The cinematic conventions of travelogues evolved in the first decade of the twentieth century, and it was also in this period that French companies became the most renowned makers of these films (Peterson). The films were usually comprised of a series of discrete sequences; they featured a large number of long shots; and there would be movement in almost every scene (either created by camera movement or by the action on screen). Many films fixated on the native body moving through ‘cultural activities’ (Rony, 1996, 83). They also regularly featured ethnographic portraits of people. Fatimah Rony points out that ‘there is rarely an attempt to construct the camera as a hidden voyeur: in early travelogues, people […] stare at the camera’ (Rony, 1996, 83). Although shown in a variety of contexts, including lectures, fairground shows and movie theatres, travelogues were aimed primarily at an educated audience, and erred towards the point of view of a ‘bourgeois tourist’ (Rony, 1996, 83).

This film depicts Tikka Jagajit Singh, the Maharaja of Kapurthala, accompanied by European and Indian guests, on an outing to witness fishing on the River Bias. Located in the Punjab region, Kapurthala was one of India’s Princely states. These states were nominally autonomous and were outside the government of India’s tax base. However, the colonial government provided the Princely states with loans, finance and advice. In return the princes acknowledged the sovereignty of the British ruler – hence their own lower designation as ‘Princes’ – and were commonly bound to supply military forces for the Empire’s defence (Buyers, 2008). Within the Punjab, the Maharaja of Kapurthala stood fifth in order among the ruling chiefs.

Tikka Jagatjit Singh ruled Kapurthala from 1890 until his death in 1948. He was noted for his ‘wholehearted and thorough co-operation with the British government’, and in return was regarded by the British as a progressive ruler (‘Punjab State Maharajas’). At the coronation Delhi Durbar in 1911, King George V conferred upon him the title of Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India. Widely travelled, the Maharaja was personally acquainted with most of the crowned heads of Europe, and also with the presidents of France and the United States. Kapurthala received visits from successive Indian Viceroys and was also a destination of the Prince of Wales during his tour of 1921-22 (‘Punjab State Maharajahs’). In addition, the state received visits from the majority of India’s leading Princes.

The Maharajah was one of the most prominent of the Indian princes to have a non-Indian wife. In 1907 he married the Spanish dancer Anita Delgrada in Paris (Vázquez de Gey). Delgrada’s biographer claims that in India she led a life of ‘Hunts, banquets, parties and receptions’ (Vázequez de Gey). She adds that Delgrada and the Prince became ‘famous in Europe’ and that whenever they visited ‘hoards of photographers were waiting’.