Daphne Zepos first came to India in the mid-60s as the timid 19-year-old bride of a Bengali gentleman. If you think the first sentence sounds like the opening line of a romantic novel you would not be too far off. The peripatetic life of the French painter and jewellery designer, now based in Bali, could certainly provide material for several. But that is another story.

I first met Daphne a few years ago in New Delhi at the residence of the Swedish ambassador, Johan Nordenfelt, whose houseguest she was at the time. Petite and soft-spoken she would have gone unnoticed had it not been for her baby-blue eyes and penetrating gaze: the dinner guests that night were particularly gregarious, loud actually. And Delhi’s denizens are seldom reticent, as she certainly is.

The reticence is misleading. The gifted Mrs Zepos juggles two distinct professions. Yet on closer examination there is much in common between her oils on canvas and her jewellery. Creative imagination informs the two very different mediums. Each one of her jewellery designs is unique, sui generis if you will, because she can never reproduce the same piece. She described her designs as “wearable works of art”, beyond fashion or trends.

She usually works with semi-precious and precious stones, South Sea pearls and freshwater pearls, which she sets in sterling silver or gold. Most of the designs are inspired by nature: trees, leaves, seeds, flowers or the shells and corals she comes across while strolling on the beach near her Bali home. Sometimes, even unusual objects find their way into her creations, such as miniature ivory masks and insouciant bric-a-brac.

Daphne is an accidental jewellery designer. Some years ago while on a visit to the Indonesian island of Lombok she came across stunning, odd-shaped South Sea pearls. Initially, she bought a few of these ‘baroque’ pearls (what odd-shaped South Sea pearls are called) just to look at them. Later, when she was trying to make a small sculpture by twisting silver wires, it unexpectedly took on the structure of a necklace. She added the baroque pearls she had squirrelled away and some blue topaz gems to her work-in-process. And, voila, she had her first piece of jewellery.

Since the line between art and design continues to blur, Daphne has been able to move easily between painting and designing jewellery. Lately, however, painting portraits has become top priority for her. These include both official and private ones — in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. She has done several of the members of the royal family of Spain.

Increasingly, her sojourns in India have become more frequent and longer: she is now doing several commissioned portraits of Indians. It’s a return to India of sorts. Actually, Daphne’s Indian connection isn’t limited to her sasural. Tragically, her Indian husband died three years after they were married, after which her life took her elsewhere.

Her second tryst with India came much later when she returned to live in New Delhi in the ’90s with her second husband, Yanis Alexis Zepos, the former Greek ambassador to India. The Zeposes were a popular couple in Delhi society. And, she was a much-coveted portrait painter. If you look carefully through the salons of the city’s elite you can spot many of them. Including those of Maharani Gita Devi of Kapurthala; the late Parvinder Singh, then Chairman of Ranbaxy; Lekha Poddar; Ranji and Prama Thapar with their dog, Kaiser; Shiv Nadir and his family; Shirin Paul; Mani Mann and Romi Chopra. There is a delightfully whimsical portrait of Aude Priya Wacziarg Engel, the opera singer, the daughter of Francis Wacziarg, Frenchman who is now a naturalised Indian and the co-chairman of Neemrana Hotels.

What is interesting about these portraits is the fact that the subjects have been portrayed the way they see themselves. “I ask them how they want to be seen, what kind of clothes they would like to wear and what kind of props they would like to have.” Beauty — or truth as it may be — lies not only in the eyes of the beholder but in the beholden. It is important for Daphne to know the person before she paints them. Expectedly, many of them become good friends. So, it comes as no surprise to learn that one of the prized possessions of the former Swedish ambassador, Johan Nordenfelt, is the portrait Daphne Zepos did of him.

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