S.M. Tagore was a 19th century Bengali musicologist and founder of the Bengal Music School (1871). His panegyrics in Sanskrit express ‘grateful allegiance’ to Queen Victoria, in anticipation of her assuming the title of Empress of India in 1877. This presentation copy made for her was bound in purple velvet jewelled covers.

Tagore later founded the Bengal Academy of Music (1881) and published extensively on music theory. In the early 1880s he set Indian translations of God Save the Queen to popular Indian melodies as national anthems for the Indian Empire.