Ravi Varma was a celebrated Indian painter and artist. He 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. His depictions of Hindu deities and episodes from the epics and Puranas have received profound acceptance from the public and are found, often as objects of worship, across the length and breadth of India. Ravi Varma started a lithographic printing press in Ghatkopar, Mumbai in 1894 and later shifted it to Malavli near Lonavala, Maharashtra in 1899. The oleographs produced by the press were mostly of Hindu gods and goddesses in scenes adapted mainly from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Puranas.
Oleographs were mass produced, but very few have survived. These have become a sought after collectible now and few of the rare ones can be worth lakhs of rupees. Oleographs, or chromolithographs were designed to resemble oil paintings in style, but were also affordable for the poor and often pinned to the wall as artworks.