Indian Paintings

india (muGhal), circa 1700

heiGht: 69.3 cm Width: 82.5 cm depth: 8.5 cm

A carved red sandstone panel, the delicately speckled sandstone carved in relief with a profusion of flowers and leaves on scrolling vines. The abundant vegetal scrolls rise from a base composed of vigorously curling acanthus leaves that support further leaves forming the shape of a waisted vase from which sprout a fan of bold acanthus leaves, surmounted by scrolling vines on which stylised iris and poppy flowers and buds bend and nod. The floral designs are set within a square frame with broad borders on either side. The combination of various levels of relief with vegetal growth that seems at once vigorous yet languid imparts a sense of life sprouting before our very eyes.

Though the design is formal and essentially symmetrical, the

39

PRINCESS AND NOBLEMAN SHOOTING DEER

india (jodhpur), mid 17th century

heiGht: 13.7 cm Width: 20.2 cm

Opaque watercolour on paper.

On the gentle slope of a rolling hill dotted with short trees and thorny shrubs, the sparse grassland interspersed with dry sandy outcrops characteristic of the Rajasthani landscape, a nobleman teaches a princess the art of shooting deer. She kneels on the ground and takes aim at the gambolling deer ahead, the long barrel of her gun resting on the shoulder of the female attendant in front.

The nobleman has his left arm around the huntress, indicating that he is instructing her in the skills of shooting, but the suggestion that this may also be a romantic assignation is strong, with hunting a pretext for seduction as indicated by the tender placement of his arm on her back as he guides her to take accurate aim. He points at a grazing deer straight ahead and indicates that she should shoot this stationary animal rather than the other swiftly moving beasts. The attendant helps with the aim, guiding the muzzle toward the deer. To the lower right corner, another member of the shooting party loads her gun in readiness for her turn. A mature nilgai or male black buck with long elegant horns majestically surveys the scene from behind the curve of a hill. Nilgais leap in pairs, alert to the danger posed by the hunters and no doubt alerted by the sound of gunshots. This unfinished hunting scene can be attributed to Jodhpur in the mid to late seventeenth century. The palette and delicate rendering of the tree and landscape are close in style to a Jodhpur miniature of circa 1640-1650, “Princes Visiting Yogis by the Waterside”. This painting, formerly in the Bachofen von Echt Collection, was sold at the Sotheby’s London auction of 29th April 1992, lot 37, and illustrated on p. 77 of the auction catalogue, Indian Miniatures and Company School Paintings: The Collection of Baron and Baroness Bachofen von Echt, 1992. In this catalogue, Toby Falk suggests that the figure playing a stringed instrument is probably Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur.1

The turban and general physiognomy of the nobleman in the present

hunting scene are close in style to that of several members of the Jodhpur court under Jaswant Singh (reigned 1638-1678). Specifically, he is almost identical to the figure of a courtier depicted in a fine preparatory sketch for a durbar scene dating to circa 1644-1645, now at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. This is published in Stuart Cary Welch, Indian Drawings and Painted Sketches: 16th through 19th Centuries, 1976, pp. 114-115. He is the third figure from the right in the triangular formation with Jaswant Singh at the apex, and is probably a representation of the same character as in our picture.

The nobleman in the V & A picture is not identified, but he must be a senior member of court as he sits facing Jaswant Singh with only one other courtier closer to the Maharajah. He is also shown in the same position within the hierarchy of courtiers in the coloured drawing of “Maharaja Jaswant Singh and nobles in durbar” at the British Museum, London, circa 1640-1642, which is closely related to the V & A drawing and shows the same people. The coloured drawing is published in Rosemary Crill, Marwar Painting: A History of the Jodhpur Style, 2000, p. 45, fig. 23; Crill also illustrates the V & A drawing on the same page in fig. 24.2

It is worth noting the very long barrel of the matchlock gun that rests on the shoulder of the female attendant. Though partly obscured, the outlines of the gun are visible under the green wash. An almost identical composition can be seen in a Bikaner miniature of circa 1680, depicting “Ladies Hunting Deer” in the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai. This is published in Vishakha N. Desai, Life at Court: Art for India’s Rulers, 16th -19th Centuries, 1985, p. 80, no. 64.

Desai observes that “following the Mughal fashion of taking queens and princesses on royal hunts, Rajput rulers at Bikaner also encouraged their women to be adept at hunting. In this hillside scene, we see a prince pointing at a deer with one hand while holding the huntress with the other. The princess is helped by a female attendant who supports the barrel of the gun.”

Bikaner artists periodically visited the Jodhpur court and influenced the Jodhpur atelier with their soft Mughal colours and refined style. Though the Bikaner painting published by Desai is extremely refined and so beautifully finished that an attribution to the atelier of Ruknuddin can be suggested, the faces of the nobleman and princess are handsome idealisations, very different from the gruff but distinctly individual face of the nobleman in our painting.

A famous Mughal painting dating to circa 1660 in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin depicting the “Emperor Aurangzeb hunting nilgais” may provide an imperial prototype for these Rajasthani pictures. This is published in Linda York Leach, Mughal and other Indian Paintings from the Chester Beatty Library, 1995, vol. I, p. 498, colour pl. 75 (11A.27). Aurangzeb hunts nilgais at night on a hilly plain covered with trees and bushes. He kneels on a red carpet supporting the barrel of his rifle on the shoulders of the two squatting huntsmen. Desai compares the similarity in compositional features with the long gun resting on the shoulders of henchmen and the treatment of the light green landscape dotted with trees, parallels that can be drawn with our painting as well. The most telling parallel however, applicable to all these paintings, can be drawn from an astute observation made by Leach: “The belief that the emperor had a noble prerogative over life and death meant that he was entitled to be careless of human as well as animal life; this attitude is often unconsciously reflected in miniatures such as the scene of Aurangzeb balancing his rifle on a huntsman’s shoulders to shoot nilgai; the loud report of the gun, its kick and the danger of misfire were probably all taken as a matter of course by the attendant.”3

Provenance: The Stuart Cary Welch Collection

Reference: 1. The Bachofen painting is also published in George Michell and Linda Leach, In the Image of Man: the Indian perception of the Universe through 2000 years of painting and sculpture, 1982, p. 171, no. 296, where Leach assigns it to Bikaner, no doubt on account of its delicate colouring and Mughalised style. 2. Also illustrated in Leach, 1982, no. 198; and Roda Ahluwalia, Rajput Painting: Romantic, Divine and Courtly Art from India, 2008, p. 90, no. 52. 3. Leach, 1982, p. 153; the Aurangzeb picture is illustrated on p.155, no. 212.

40

NOBLEMAN SEATED ON A PLATFORM

india (Guler), circa 1740

ascribed to manaKu of Guler

heiGht: 19 cm Width: 28.5 cm

Ink on paper, inscribed with the number “115” in takri to the lower border.

A brush drawing from a Bhagavata Purana series.

A nobleman is seated on a platform with his arms resting on a shield. He wears a turban and sports a large bushy moustache. A sword in its sheath is prominently displayed on the floor by his side, and tucked into his patka (sash) is a small knife in its scabbard. Standing behind the nobleman is an attendant carrying a handkerchief and waving a chowrie (flywhisk), a clear sign of the main figure’s royal status. The scene is framed by trees on the left and right.

The outdoor setting and the weapons carried by the nobleman suggest that he may be resting on his travels. The presence of many weapons suggests the protagonist is alert to possible attack and is prepared to do battle, but the fact that the weapons remain sheathed indicate that the threat is as yet imminent rather than immediate. This illustration is from an important set of drawings which are part of a Bhagavata Purana series produced at Guler around 1740. The series is unfinished but extensive, and comprises both finished paintings and hundreds of drawings such as the present, which pick up the narrative where the paintings end. The series has been attributed by B. N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer to the master painter Manaku of Guler, son of Pandit Seu and elder brother of Nainsukh.

In their seminal exhibition and catalogue, Pahari Masters: Court Painters of India, 1992, at the Museum Rietberg, Zurich, Goswamy and Fischer publish four paintings and two drawings from this great Bhagavata Purana on pp. 258-263, nos. 105-110. They estimate that the series, consisting of the finished paintings and the drawings, may have run close to one thousand folios, a gigantic task which would have taken Manaku many years, even with the assistance of members of his prodigiously talented family.

While other members of the family workshop will have helped to complete the paintings, it is likely that Manaku worked on the drawings alone as he conceived of each scene. They can be seen as “preliminary” rather than “preparatory” works, since Manaku seems to have been constantly thinking about his compositions and altering them, as shown by the under drawings in charcoal on some of the drawings that embody his first thoughts. Unlike other drawings from the series, there is no inscription in takri on the top margin, making identification of the scene difficult, since the text is very extensive and there are all kinds of episodes, generally neglected, that Manaku seems to have chosen to illustrate. The series is dense in its visual narration and scenes are treated expansively, with many pictures used to depict the detailed progress of an episode.

Only a few drawings of this series have been published. No. 109 illustrated in Goswamy and Fischer, 1992, is from the collection of Dr Jyoti and Nona Datta in Los Angeles, while no. 110 is in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich. For further discussion of the painter and two drawings also at the Rietberg, see the chapter on Manaku by Goswamy and Fischer in Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer and B. N. Goswamy (eds.) with Jorrit Britschgi (project director), Masters of Indian Painting II: 1650-1900, 2011, pp. 641658, figs. 11 and 11a.

Provenance: The Stuart Cary Welch Collection

Acknowledgement: We would like to thank B. N. Goswamy for his expert advice.

41

MAHARANA ARI SINGH RIDING AHEAD OF AN ELEPHANT WHICH HAS THROWN ITS MAHOUT

india (udaipur), dated 1761

heiGht: 25.2 cm Width: 44.2 cm

Opaque watercolour heightened with gold and silver on paper.

Inscribed on the reverse in Hindi in devanagari identifying Maharana Ari Singh and numbered 3/234.

According to the inscription, the picture entered into the royal picture store on V.S.1818, jeth sud 1 (3rd June 1761).

The theme of elephants breaking loose from their chains and running amok, established as early as the Mughal period and seen also in the famous elephant paintings of the Deccan, became particularly popular in the Rajput courts of the eighteenth century. The theme and iconography of the enraged elephant finds its fullest and earliest expression in the text and paintings of the Akbarnama. Akbar’s ability to master the mast or musth enraged bull elephant is a symbol of his ability to preside over an unruly populace and ride above the storms of political dissent. A ruler’s control of the rampaging beast is used iconographically in the same way as a king’s skills in hunting, horse riding and archery: to celebrate and legitimise his kingship and right to rule. Enraged elephants present an extreme challenge as the beasts rage with hormonal levels of testosterone sixty times above the norm and are thus prone to anger and rampage. In this very dynamic painting, the charging elephant is candidly shown leaking seminal fluids and urine from his penis as he runs along at top speed. This unflinching detail elevates the painting way above other more reticent examples of the genre.

By the time of the irascible Mewar ruler, Maharana Ari Singh (reigned 1761-1773) the deeper political implications of a ruler’s ability to control an elephant running amok were diminished in place of celebrating the feat as pure spectacle and diverting entertainment. Despite his unpopularity and ruthlessness, Ari Singh presided over a period of abundant painting. When depicted in his public persona, Ari Singh appears most often on horseback. During 1761-1762, the period of this picture in the first years of his reign, his artists produced a spate of equestrian procession scenes, showing him mounted on his favourite stallions with an entourage of up to twenty attendants on foot, in the well-worn convention developed under Sangram Singh.1

Solitary equestrian portraits were also produced, including spirited studies of the Rana wheeling at full speed as he practices horsemanship or galloping alongside his boon companion Rupji.2 In other paintings, he is shown shooting wild boar from his horse while out hunting in the hills surrounding Udaipur. No doubt Ari Singh was a splendid horseman and wanted his painters to celebrate his riding skills while providing him with a glittering, heroic context in which to be depicted, rather different from the reality of his willful and illtempered character and the meagre achievements of his turbulent rule.3

In the present painting, the nimbated Ari Singh races ahead of the mad elephant on his stallion, skilfully holding the reins with his left hand while brandishing a talwar sword, still sheathed in its red velvet scabbard in his right. The sheathed sword tells us that he has no intention of using it on his prize elephant nor hurting the valuable beast, merely waving the sword to draw its attention and move it away from the thrown mahout (driver) for fear of trampling under its colossal weight. The elephant has broken chains around both rear ankles. Bringing up the rear are three attendants running in hot pursuit holding tall spears. It is clear that they will be ineffective in subduing the elephant, they are so far behind and so ill-equipped. It is only the heroic Ari Singh, suave and dashing on his elegant and finely caparisoned steed, his skirt flaring in the wind and an expression of calm resolve on his handsome face, who can and will save the day.

For a circa 1800 Devgarh version of this subject in the style of Bagta, see our 2007 Simon Ray Indian & Islamic Works of Art catalogue, pp. 120-123, cat. no. 50. Here the ruler similarly and effortlessly outpaces an elephant running amok with snapped chains around its ankles, as hapless and ineffective attendants run alongside.

Provenance: Mewar Royal Collection, Udaipur The British Rail Pension Fund

Published: Sotheby’s, Indian Miniatures: The Property of the British Rail Pension Fund, London, Tuesday 26th April 1994, lot 43.

Acknowledgement: We would like to thank Andrew Topsfield for his expert advice. The notes on the Mewar paintings in the British Rail Pension Fund auction were prepared by Topsfield for Toby Falk, so we very much appreciate his valuable insights.

References: 1. Andrew Topsfield, Court Painting at Udaipur: Art under the patronage of the Maharanas of Mewar, 2002, p. 199. 2. For equestrian portraits of Ari Singh see Andrew Topsfield, Paintings from Rajasthan in the National Gallery of Victoria, 1980, pp. 120 and 123, cat. nos. 170 and 179. 3. For a depiction of Ari Singh shooting boar on horseback, dated 1762, a year after our present picture but in the same manner, see Topsfield, 2002, p. 201, fig. 182. See also Topsfield, 1980, pp. 121-122, cat. nos. 171 and 175.

42

PRINCESS ON HORSEBACK EMBRACES HER ATTENDANT

india (uniara or bundi), 1770-1790

heiGht: 29.2 cm

Width: 22 cm

Opaque watercolour heightened with gold on paper.

This delicious scene is set within the secretive, enclosed courtyard of the zenana quarters of a palace complex. A princess wearing a diaphanous robe and a distinctive red hat in the European style is seated on a small but richly caparisoned prancing horse. Holding the reins with her left hand, she arches her back and twists round to embrace, with her right arm, the attendant strolling close behind the horse. The princess lowers her face towards that of the lady, who looks up as if inviting a kiss while fondling the breast of the princess with her hennaed hand. Both ladies have gentle smiles on their lips while gazing seductively at each other through elongated eyes. Perhaps the noblewomen are enacting a scene of a departing prince now absent on horseback, but this alone would be insufficient explanation for the undeniable erotic frisson and spirit of romance generated by their close and tender embrace.

A lady holding a tray of drinks and condiments leads the horse forward by means of the most delicate of chains, towards the door and passage leading further into the zenana quarters, while behind the main group, a lady follows with a fan. The figures move in stately fashion from left to right across a terrace paved with a chequerboard of red and blue tiles. The dense cluster of trees outside the palace wall seems eager to join in the embrace of the main couple. A branch spills over voluptuously to form a canopy for the lovers while echoing the leaning posture of the equestrian princess, uniting the backdrop with the central scene. On the left is a window partially shielded by a blind that plays into the theme of simultaneous hiding and revealing.

At the bottom of the painting is a lotus pond. The leaves and lotus flowers reach up in an echo of the branch reaching down, breaking the barrier between the water and the architecture, and linking the foreground to the central space.

Thus, the plants that penetrate the central space connect all three layers of the painting. Continuing the theme of romance are ducks and fish that swim in pairs.

The subject is a well-known composition of which several published versions with variations to the activities and details of the ladies and lush foliage exist. An excellent example is in the Cynthia Hazen Polsky Collection, New York. This is illustrated in Andrew Topsfield (ed.), In the Realm of Gods and Kings: Arts of India, 2004, pp. 344-345, cat. no. 152. This has the same three-tiered structure linked by yearning plants reaching down from above and the waters of a fountain thrusting up into the central scene of ladies enacting a royal procession on horseback. According to Andrew Topsfield, who dates these paintings to circa 1770, in the Polsky composition, the “blossoming tree and the broad fleshy leaves and pendulous pink flower in the adjoining gardens seem to spill over the courtyard wall and strain inwards through its doorways, as though irresistibly drawn by the lovely lady and her maids.”1 Topsfield notes that zenana scenes of ladies taking their leisure was a popular genre in the late eighteenth century with the Hari Rajput rulers of the Bundi region.2

Another version of this composition is illustrated in Stuart Cary Welch and Milo Cleveland Beach, Gods, Thrones, and Peacocks: Northern Indian Painting from Two Traditions: Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries, 1965, p. 100, pl. 66. Welch and Beach describe their painting as Bundi style at Uniara.

References: 1. Andrew Topsfield (ed.), In the Realm of Gods and Kings: Arts of India, 2004, p. 344. 2. Ibid.