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Lot Essay
A royal elephant draped in a red mantle, gold and silver chains, and white tassels hanging along his ears, laps water from a silver gray pond. His mahout, staff in hand, waits alongside. Both are set along a mint green background which fades into a hazy sky.
This quirky elephant portrait, floating in transient space, incorporates a few atmospheric details including tiny birds in flight in the upper sky, the pond and the lone attendant. The minimalist schematic backdrop of light green defines Bikaner painting aesthetics. Earlier examples with these green grounds can be found in an illustration of the Rasikapriya of Keshav Das (Sotheby's, New York, 20 March 2025, lot 506) and the portrait of Raja Sujana Singh and Prince Zoravara Singh from the Ehrenfeld Collection (see D. Enbohn, Indian Miniatures, p. 150, no. 69), which also share borders of thick ruby red framed by a narrow line in India yellow.
Several eighteenth-century Bikaner paintings divide the composition into three registers: a thin foreground, here represented by the pond; a large middle ground of a single, uninterrupted color; and a horizon placed high along the upper edge of the painting. Many examples contain single or mostly single figures set along the foreground and placed at center (cf. Christie's, London, 23 October 2007, lot 333; Christie's, New York, 16 September 2008, lot 447).
It is unusual that an elephant would take center stage, frontally gazing at the viewer with his golden eyes and presenting his trimmed tusks. The artist has also employed the unusual convention of showing the elephant's shadow, perhaps to indicate the intensity of the sun and the need for a drink. The painting was likely commissioned to commemorate a specific royal elephant, intended for a formal presentation to the Maharaja. These nazar paintings were created by a master artist who would often impart his personal and sentimental touch to his subject, captured in the elephant's shared gaze with the viewer, the shadow cast along his side, and the splash shooting from his trunk over the pond.
This quirky elephant portrait, floating in transient space, incorporates a few atmospheric details including tiny birds in flight in the upper sky, the pond and the lone attendant. The minimalist schematic backdrop of light green defines Bikaner painting aesthetics. Earlier examples with these green grounds can be found in an illustration of the Rasikapriya of Keshav Das (Sotheby's, New York, 20 March 2025, lot 506) and the portrait of Raja Sujana Singh and Prince Zoravara Singh from the Ehrenfeld Collection (see D. Enbohn, Indian Miniatures, p. 150, no. 69), which also share borders of thick ruby red framed by a narrow line in India yellow.
Several eighteenth-century Bikaner paintings divide the composition into three registers: a thin foreground, here represented by the pond; a large middle ground of a single, uninterrupted color; and a horizon placed high along the upper edge of the painting. Many examples contain single or mostly single figures set along the foreground and placed at center (cf. Christie's, London, 23 October 2007, lot 333; Christie's, New York, 16 September 2008, lot 447).
It is unusual that an elephant would take center stage, frontally gazing at the viewer with his golden eyes and presenting his trimmed tusks. The artist has also employed the unusual convention of showing the elephant's shadow, perhaps to indicate the intensity of the sun and the need for a drink. The painting was likely commissioned to commemorate a specific royal elephant, intended for a formal presentation to the Maharaja. These nazar paintings were created by a master artist who would often impart his personal and sentimental touch to his subject, captured in the elephant's shared gaze with the viewer, the shadow cast along his side, and the splash shooting from his trunk over the pond.