Inscribed on the reverse with thirty lines of Persian descriptive text in black nasta'liq script, recording that it is an album page (muraqqa’) consisting of a painting of Maharana Sri Bhim Singh Jiv on the bank of the Nadi Ari, next to the Deva Bagh on the road to Sir Niyari (Siriyari?) surrounded by his courtiers. There follow identifications of the figures present. At the bottom it specifies the occasion: ‘on the blessed anniversary of His Highness (ruz-i mubarak-i salgirah-i sri-huzur) on miti chit bi-dachhath (?), Thursday, Samvat 1882.’
Signed in red by the scribe ‘the most wretched of servants, Sayyid Ibrahim 'Ali, in his hometown Delhi,’ and dated ‘Samvat 1882’ (A.D. 1825-1826), bearing Mewari inventory numbers ‘4/312’ and a valuation of ‘Rs.50’
Provenance:
Mewar Royal collection
Prof. R.A. Dara (d. 1966)
Sven Gahlin Collection
Sotheby’s, London, October 6, 2015, no. 75
Referred to:
Spink and Son, Indian Miniature Painting, sale catalogue, London, 1987, p. 96, under no. 43
Topsfield, A., Court Painting at Udaipur: Art under the Patronage of the Maharanas of Mewar, Artibus Asiae, Zurich, 2002, p. 237, and footnote 137
Maharana Bhim Singh (1778-1828) is shown in the foreground firing a musket at red targets floating in a stream. His son Javan Singh is beside him, shooting along with another of his nobles or perhaps another son, while Mewar nobles surround them. A splendidly-caparisoned grey horse stands quietly nearby, unmoving. It presumably has conveyed the Maharana to this spot. After the shooting practice the Maharana is shown feasting in an encampment along with his nobles. Bhim Singh, resplendent with his pearls and gold costume and halo, has a large leaf platter placed before him covered with various dishes. Two attendants are seated before him, one of whom attends to his drinks while the other holds his hookah. An elderly minister seems to be addressing the Maharana. Other nobles sit all around with noticeably smaller leaf platters in front of them. The royal qanats shield the Maharana from the road beyond, along which many people are passing, depicted very small at the top of the painting.
Bhim Singh came to the gaddi in Mewar at the age of ten. His early reign was defined by various insurrections, enmity between some of the principal noble families, and the difficulties caused by the Maratha incursions, reducing the royal revenues almost to subsistence level. What artistic activity there was in Udaipur was a result of what Topsfield calls the ‘reinfusion of vitality’ through the family workshop of Bakhta and his son Chokha who worked in the thikana of Deogarh and also in Udaipur itself. In 1818, Mewar and other princely states were relieved of the Marathas through the treaty signed with the East India Company, and Captain James Tod became the first Political Agent to the Western Rajput States.
A related painting ascribed to Ghasi, showing the Maharana enjoying a more impromptu picnic, has a similar long description by Ibrahim 'Ali on the verso and is now in the Ackland Art Museum (Spink 1987, no. 43; Topsfield 2002, fig. 216), stating similarly to our painting that it was presented to the Maharana in Samvat 1882 (1825-1826 C.E.). The gold-decorated borders on both sides of these paintings were added in Delhi, where Ibrahim ‘Ali wrote his inscription on the reverse which gives the names of all the participants and their ranks. It was Tod for whom our artist Ghasi is first known to have worked 1819-1821, making architectural line-drawings of temples and sculptures, some of which Tod published in his Annals and Antiquities (now with the rest of Tod’s collection in the Royal Asiatic Society, London, see Head 1991, pp. 107-122). Ghasi moved seamlessly into the Mewar court style working for the Maharana, and to him is attributed Maharana Bhim Singh greeting Tod in his return to Udaipur at the end of 1819, in the City Palace Museum, Udaipur (Topsfield 1990, no. 24, and 2002, fig. 215).
J.P. Losty
