JODHPUR, RAJASTHAN, INDIA, CIRCA 1755

Maharaja Bijay Singh endured a long but troubled reign, mostly preoccupied with defending Marwar from the advancing Maratha armies. Despite political and economic instability Bijay Singh was an enthusiastic patron of painting and his reign resulted in a number of important stylistic developments. Although unfinished, the present lot was no doubt intended to be a splendidly detailed work with great attention given to the fabric of the Maharaja’s turban and forest canopy in the background. The gold outline used on some of the storm clouds above is a device employed in painting of Bijay Singh’s reign, perhaps to greatest effect in the monsoon clouds of an illustration of circa 1775 to the Ramcharitmanas showing the Death of Vali, now in the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur (illustrated Debra Diamond, Catherine Glynn and Karni Singh Jasol, Garden & Cosmos, The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur, exhibition catalogue, London, 2009, no. 27, pp. 123-26.). Another very similar painting of Maharaja Bijay Singh listening to musicians on a terrace, but with none of the architecture found in our version, also in the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, is ascribed to the painter Kayam. Originally based in Nagaur where Bijay Singh was raised, it is probable that Kayam and other members of the Nagaur atelier moved to Jodhpur with their patron and it is possible that the same artist worked on the present painting.