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Lot Essay
This large-format and dramatically rendered tiger hunt is a tour de force of late 18th century Kotah painting, and an exceptional work by the accomplished court painter Shaykh Taju, probably one of only two dated finished paintings by this master artist and one of the greatest depictions of hunting in all Indian art. It exemplifies the Kotah school’s distinctive visual vocabulary: panoramic landscapes, dynamic figural movement, and the emotional tension of the hunt. The intensity of form and colour is searingly powerful.
The painting commemorates one of the many tiger hunts undertaken by Maharao Umed Singh, who, like his forebears, was deeply invested in the symbolism and spectacle of the royal shikar. Positioned atop a tree platform (machan), the ruler is shown aiming his rifle at a tiger below, while the dense surrounding forest teems with movement, startled animals scatter, beaters close in, and simultaneous shots ring out from hidden vantage points. His ever-present hunting partner and chief minister, Zalim Singh, is positioned in another platform above and fires upon tigers smashing through the trees. The mayhem and the cacophony of music, gunshots and yelling pulse from the page.
Rather than presenting a tidy narrative, the artist captures the chaotic, immersive nature of the hunt. The composition is intentionally disorienting, evoking the unpredictability of the wilderness. The viewer’s eye is drawn across multiple layers of activity, with no single-point perspective, a hallmark of Kotah painting that finds few equivalents in South Asian art. These compositions prefigure the aesthetics of European panoramas or even the jungle dreamscapes of Henri ‘Douanier’ Rousseau, a parallel that art historians have drawn for its surreal spatial layering and emotional charge.
While the inscription on the reverse was largely obscured by conservation backing paper, a recent re-reading by Joachim Bautze, following partial removal of the backing paper, has confirmed the identity of Maharao Umed Sing and Zalim Singh, the artist Shaykh Taju, and the date. The inscription even gives the precise date of the hunt: 20 June 1781.
As noted by Stuart Cary Welch, in discussion of a closely related work by Shaykh Taju “Because Maharao Umed Singh was an especially ardent hunter, eager to document the precise location and circumstances of each drive and bag, he commissioned his court artists to paint highly detailed descriptions such as this one. His chief minister (divan) and fellow huntsman, Zalim Singh Jhala, moreover, seems to have brought to Kotah several young artists from the Mewar court. These talented painters appear to have been trained to paint far less lively animals than those of the Kotah school; Shaykh Taju seems to have been called upon to set up a finishing school in zoological art” (Welch 1997, p.166, no.45).
Joachim Bautze has noted that three drawings or sketches and four large, finished paintings are inscribed with the name of the artist Shaykh Taju or Shaykh Chutera Taju. The present painting and an inscribed hunting scene in the collection of the Rao Madho Singh Museum Trust, Kotah (Welch 1997, cat.no.45) are probably the only known dated finished paintings by the artist Shaykh Taju. A close comparison can be found in two unfinished works attributed to Shaykh Taju and dated 1780 in the Jadish Mittal Collection (76.670. DR105 and 76.684 DR119), see Topsfield and Mittal 2015, pp.168-71 and 198-201, nos. 77 and 91. Another section of the study drawing (76.684 DR119) dated 1780 and attributed to Shaykh Taju by inscription from the Cynthia Hazen Polsky Collection is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2019.445.4).
Close comparisons of other large format hunt scenes are found in the Chester Beatty Library (Leach 1995, no.10.44 pl.143); Victoria and Albert Museum (Archer 1952, p.54, no.2, figs.37 and 38) and in Kotah Palace (Bara Mahal) mural traditions with similar compositional schemes (see Beach 1974, fig.III). Also compare related hunting scenes Sotheby's New York, 22 March 2002, lot 27; Fogg 2003, no.32; Goswamy and Smith 2005, no. 37; and Cummins 2006, fig. 8, p.162.
This painting is a seminal example of the school’s genius in narrating royal power and ritual through the spectacle of the hunt. Selected for the ground breaking exhibition India! Art and Culture 1300-1900 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1985, one of the most prestigious exhibitions ever mounted on Indian art, it helped cement Kotah painting’s place in the global canon of art history.
Its monumental scale, compositional complexity, and emotional charge elevate this painting beyond documentation into a work of dramatic visual poetry. Whether viewed as a historic record, a meditation on chaos and control, or a stylized vision of royal masculinity, this painting resonates as a true masterpiece of Rajput painting.
The painting commemorates one of the many tiger hunts undertaken by Maharao Umed Singh, who, like his forebears, was deeply invested in the symbolism and spectacle of the royal shikar. Positioned atop a tree platform (machan), the ruler is shown aiming his rifle at a tiger below, while the dense surrounding forest teems with movement, startled animals scatter, beaters close in, and simultaneous shots ring out from hidden vantage points. His ever-present hunting partner and chief minister, Zalim Singh, is positioned in another platform above and fires upon tigers smashing through the trees. The mayhem and the cacophony of music, gunshots and yelling pulse from the page.
Rather than presenting a tidy narrative, the artist captures the chaotic, immersive nature of the hunt. The composition is intentionally disorienting, evoking the unpredictability of the wilderness. The viewer’s eye is drawn across multiple layers of activity, with no single-point perspective, a hallmark of Kotah painting that finds few equivalents in South Asian art. These compositions prefigure the aesthetics of European panoramas or even the jungle dreamscapes of Henri ‘Douanier’ Rousseau, a parallel that art historians have drawn for its surreal spatial layering and emotional charge.
While the inscription on the reverse was largely obscured by conservation backing paper, a recent re-reading by Joachim Bautze, following partial removal of the backing paper, has confirmed the identity of Maharao Umed Sing and Zalim Singh, the artist Shaykh Taju, and the date. The inscription even gives the precise date of the hunt: 20 June 1781.
As noted by Stuart Cary Welch, in discussion of a closely related work by Shaykh Taju “Because Maharao Umed Singh was an especially ardent hunter, eager to document the precise location and circumstances of each drive and bag, he commissioned his court artists to paint highly detailed descriptions such as this one. His chief minister (divan) and fellow huntsman, Zalim Singh Jhala, moreover, seems to have brought to Kotah several young artists from the Mewar court. These talented painters appear to have been trained to paint far less lively animals than those of the Kotah school; Shaykh Taju seems to have been called upon to set up a finishing school in zoological art” (Welch 1997, p.166, no.45).
Joachim Bautze has noted that three drawings or sketches and four large, finished paintings are inscribed with the name of the artist Shaykh Taju or Shaykh Chutera Taju. The present painting and an inscribed hunting scene in the collection of the Rao Madho Singh Museum Trust, Kotah (Welch 1997, cat.no.45) are probably the only known dated finished paintings by the artist Shaykh Taju. A close comparison can be found in two unfinished works attributed to Shaykh Taju and dated 1780 in the Jadish Mittal Collection (76.670. DR105 and 76.684 DR119), see Topsfield and Mittal 2015, pp.168-71 and 198-201, nos. 77 and 91. Another section of the study drawing (76.684 DR119) dated 1780 and attributed to Shaykh Taju by inscription from the Cynthia Hazen Polsky Collection is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2019.445.4).
Close comparisons of other large format hunt scenes are found in the Chester Beatty Library (Leach 1995, no.10.44 pl.143); Victoria and Albert Museum (Archer 1952, p.54, no.2, figs.37 and 38) and in Kotah Palace (Bara Mahal) mural traditions with similar compositional schemes (see Beach 1974, fig.III). Also compare related hunting scenes Sotheby's New York, 22 March 2002, lot 27; Fogg 2003, no.32; Goswamy and Smith 2005, no. 37; and Cummins 2006, fig. 8, p.162.
This painting is a seminal example of the school’s genius in narrating royal power and ritual through the spectacle of the hunt. Selected for the ground breaking exhibition India! Art and Culture 1300-1900 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1985, one of the most prestigious exhibitions ever mounted on Indian art, it helped cement Kotah painting’s place in the global canon of art history.
Its monumental scale, compositional complexity, and emotional charge elevate this painting beyond documentation into a work of dramatic visual poetry. Whether viewed as a historic record, a meditation on chaos and control, or a stylized vision of royal masculinity, this painting resonates as a true masterpiece of Rajput painting.