ISARDA OR SAWAR, CIRCA 1700-20

Elephants were of great importance to Indian rulers and celebrated in Mughal and Rajput painting of the 17th and 18th centuries. Abu'l Fazl, the court historian of the Emperor Akbar, wrote in his Ain-i Akbari that elephants 'add materially to the pomp of a king and to the success of a conqueror; and [are] of the greatest value for the army. Experienced men of Hindustan put the value of a good elephant to five hundred horses' (tr. H. Blochmann, London, 1965, vol. 1, pp.123-4).

The atelier at Sawar, in Rajasthan, developed a distinctive local style of painting towards the end of the reign of Pratap Singh (r.1668-1705) which was continued under his successor Raj Singh (r.1705-1730). Situated in the south-east corner of the Ajmer region of Rajasthan, Sawar painting was greatly influenced by that at Bundi and Kotah where paintings of elephants were also of great interest. However, the mahout's yellow floral jama is a feature shared by a group of portraits painted at the nearby court of Isarda suggesting the same attribution for the present work. For a fuller discussion of painting at these two courts see Indar Parischa, "Painting at Sawar and Isarda", Oriental Art, Autumn 1982, pp. 257-69.

Other individual portraits of elephants attributed to Sawar or Isarda have been sold in these Rooms, 27 October 2023, lot 39 and 25 May 2017, lot 37; Christie's New York, 16 September 2008, lot 455.