NEW YORK (REUTERS).- A stunning, rarely seen bejeweled, nearly 150-year-old canopy from India is expected to sell for as much as $5 million when it is auctioned next month, according to Sotheby’s. The Pearl Canopy of Baroda will go under the hammer on March 24 as part of a larger auction of Indian and Southeast Asian Works of Art in New York. It includes over 500,000 pearls, as well as numerous diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds sewn on silk. Floral “Persian-style” vines made with colored beads circle the canopy. “The Maharaja was a great patron of the arts,” said Mary Jo Otsea, the worldwide director of Sotheby’s carpet department. “This piece is a continuation of the golden age of Indian art from the Mughal period, with Persian influences.” The canopy dates from around 1865, when it was commissioned by the Maharaja of