Object Details
Artist
Hans Raj Joshi (1750-1799)
School/Tradition
Kota school
Inscriptions
Recto: in devanagari script: maharaja dhiraja maharaja maharao raja sri umed singhji bahadur his
Courageous king of kings, great king Umed Singh
Verso: in devanagari script: samvat 1844 vasakih sudi 14, hitvarah din ki jp dim (?) kul thak ajai nahan ghoghari mari…Joshi Hans Raj chuterako, ji ho
Samvat 1844 (1787 CE), fourteenth day of Caisakh, Sunday…killed the…animals.
Painting by Hans Raj Joshi
Painting by Hans Raj Joshi
Label
Royal hunts were symbolically important expressions of kingship within the Ancient Near East, Persia and India. Beginning around 1660, artists in Kota began creating extraordinary images of rulers hunting game, which through to the mid-eighteenth century deployed calligraphic contour lines to render animals with great vivacity in highly textured landscapes. This later hunt scene deploys solid blocks of color - lavender, salmon, orange and teal - that play off the textured sage greens of the forest. The composition demands that the viewer search through the foliage for a tiger represented multiple times in a way that perhaps evokes the act of looking for game in the jungle. On the right, a tiger mauls one of the servants of the hunt. At top center, a nobleman, probably the powerful Zalim Singh, shoots from a a hunting platform at the tiger. The tiger subsequently appears on the left, charging towards Umed Singh, with white halo and dressed in camouflage green, who shoots from a hunting platform. Visible above and below the tiger is the lattice-work enclosure that was built to drive game towards the ruler.
The knobby lavender rocks, which appear in other Kota hunt scenes, suggest that the location is the hunting grounds of Kaithun.
Provenance
To 1971
Indian Arts Palace, New Delhi [1]
From 1971 to 2001
Ralph Benkaim (1914-2001), purchased from Indian Arts Palace, New Delhi in December 1971 [2]
From 2001 to 2018
Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Beverly Hills, California, by inheritance from Ralph Benkaim in 2001
From 2018
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, partial gift and purchase from Catherine Glynn Benkaim
Notes:
[1] According to information from Catherine Glynn Benkaim.
[2] See note 1.
Collection
National Museum of Asian Art Collection
Exhibition History
Life at court: Art for India's Rulers, 16th-19th centuries (November 20, 1985 to May 11, 1986)
Previous custodian or owner
Indian Arts Palace
Ralph and Catherine Benkaim
Catherine Glynn Benkaim (born 1946)
Credit Line
Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection — funds provided by the Friends of the National Museum of Asian Art
Date
1787
Accession Number
S2018.1.39
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Type
Painting
Medium
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Dimensions
H x W (overall): 43.2 × 70.2 cm (17 × 27 5/8 in)
H x W (framed): 61.6 × 86 cm (24 1/4 × 33 7/8 in)
Origin
Kota, Rajasthan state, India
See more items in
National Museum of Asian Art
Data Source
National Museum of Asian Art
Topic
portrait
tiger
hunting
India
raja
South Asian and Himalayan Art
Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection
Link to Original Record
Record ID
fsg_S2018.1.39