India, Bengal, Murshidabad, 1770-1800

The Bhils, often depicted in leaf-skirts as in the present painting, were a tribal group originating from Rajasthan whose ability to hunt at night fascinated painters of the 18th century onwards. The Bhils symbolised a rural idyll to those living in the cities and the subject was one that could be gracefully and dramatically portrayed (Linda York Leach, Mughal and other Indian paintings in the Chester Beatty, v.II, p.693).
The same subject from a similar period can be found in the Princeton University Art Museum (inv.2016-51); Metropolitan Museum of Art (30.95.174.20); the Collection of the Fondation Custodia, Paris (Sven Ghalin, The Courts of India, Netherlands, 1991, no.50.); Leach, op.cit., p.692, fig.6.331).