Animals in Indian court painting: elephants, horses, cheetahs and falcons

This page looks at the animals that share the picture with India's rulers in court paintings from the 1500s to the 1800s: elephants, horses, cheetahs, falcons, dogs and cats. It explains how painters placed each animal beside a king or prince, and what the animal told a viewer about the man in the picture. For the other signs of royalty in these portraits, start at the Indian court painting guide.

Why rulers were painted with animals

The Cleveland Museum of Art says elephants have been an emblem of royalty in India for more than 3,000 years. The same museum says the Mughal emperors kept portraits of animals, and that patrons in the smaller kingdoms under Mughal rule took up the habit.

The hunt itself had a political purpose. The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London sums up what Akbar's court historian, Abu'l Fazl, wrote about it. A hunt let the emperor see how his men behaved in danger, so he could place them well in battle. It gave him a reason to arrive without warning in any part of his lands and see for himself whether they were run with justice. It also let him move large numbers of armed men into areas that might rebel, as a silent threat.

Elephants: the royal mount

Akbar and the elephant Hawa'i

The V&A calls Akbar's ride on the elephant Hawa'i one of the most dramatic adventures of his life. The museum holds the two Akbarnama pages, designed by Basawan, that show what happened outside Agra in 1561. The museum says elephant fighting was a favourite sport of the court, and that Akbar chose to ride Hawa'i, known for his difficult character and bad temper, against another royal elephant called Ran Bagha. When Ran Bagha ran, Hawa'i chased him onto a bridge of boats over the Yamuna river. The bridge lurched under the weight, and the people on it dived into the water.

The V&A says the drama comes from the rough water and from the elephant breaking out of the frame of the picture, since facial expressions are rare in Mughal manuscript painting. Onlookers press a finger to their lips, a standard gesture of worry and awe taken from Iranian painting.

Size shows rank

Another Akbarnama page in the V&A shows Akbar crossing the Ganges on an elephant to fight two rebel brothers. The museum says the royal elephant and the emperor are drawn larger than the rest of the group to show their importance. The animals wear gold chains and other jewellery, and Akbar steers his elephant with a gold goad, the hooked rod used to guide an elephant.

Elephants at the Rajput courts

The Rajput courts painted their elephants too. The Cleveland Museum of Art holds Prince Amar Singh Drives His Own Elephant, made in Mewar around 1695. The young prince, in yellow, holds the goad himself. Behind him an attendant holds a flywhisk, a royal emblem, which streams back with the speed of the running elephant.

At Udaipur, the court recorded its elephants one by one. Cleveland's Royal Elephant Ramkali with a Mahout, from around 1761, belongs to a series showing the elephants in the royal stables, each named in the upper margin. A mahout, or elephant driver, steers the female elephant at a brisk trot while her bells swing. India's National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) says Sawai Ishwari Singh of Jaipur, who ruled from 1743 to 1750, had his pastimes painted, including elephant rides and elephant fights.

Horses: the ruler in the saddle

Cleveland's Equestrian Portrait of Maharana Raj Singh II of Mewar, from around 1760, shows the young ruler with the first signs of facial hair. He rides a black stallion through the grass, with fresh flowers tucked into his jewelled turban band and a dagger with a lion's head in his belt. Rain clouds gather, and he signals to his attendants not to be afraid.

A horse could also mark an event. Cleveland's Prince Mathu Singh of Jatoli on a Blue Horse Riding to Udaipur, from around 1720, celebrates a ride that the museum puts at nearly 600 kilometres, from the small state of Jatoli to the Mewar capital. The stallion rears on its hind legs to mark the start of the journey, and a servant waving a flywhisk shows that the rider is royal.

Horses show courage in the hunt as well. A Mughal drawing in Cleveland from around 1600 shows a prince killing a lion with one blow of his sword while his horse lunges toward the animal. The museum calls the lion hunt an ancient display of a king's courage and power, most of all in Iran and the Near East, where the Mughals traced their cultural roots.

Horses were also royal gifts. On a V&A Akbarnama page showing Akbar as the guest of his foster brother Azim Khan at Dipalpur in 1571, attendants bring horses and other gifts, alongside a trained hunting cheetah, a falconer and elephants. Our page on Rajput court portraits covers the Bundi horse that gallops so high the ground disappears. At the Deccan courts, NCERT describes a painting of Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II out hawking, with brilliant red on his horse's legs and tail and a white hawk at the centre; our page on Deccan court portraits looks at the Deccan sultans.

Cheetahs: partners in the royal hunt

A V&A Akbarnama page shows the first time Akbar watched wild cheetahs being caught, to be tamed and used for hunting. The museum says Abu'l Fazl called this the most remarkable of all the arts of the hunt in Hindustan. The cats were lured into specially dug pits so they would not be hurt, and in the painting Akbar helps lift one out.

Other pages show the cheetahs at work. In a V&A painting of a hunt in 1572, a cheetah has been released from an empty bullock cart and brings down a grown male blackbuck, an antelope. A second cheetah is still blindfolded and held by its keeper, and Akbar holds the horse he would ride to follow the chase. In a painting of a qamargah, or ring hunt, in the Lahore region, three cheetahs chase blackbuck while keepers prepare to release two more. The V&A says this page includes early work by Mansur, who became one of the greatest Mughal painters.

The ring hunt was a royal privilege. The V&A explains that beaters spread out over a huge area and then moved inward, trapping the animals in a circle. Hunting them was the emperor's right, and the leading men of the court joined only when he invited them. In the V&A's painting of such a hunt at Palam, near Delhi, Akbar's rank shows in his central place, his turban plume and jewels, and the wrapped weapons carried by his servants.

A cheetah could also carry a second meaning. The Cleveland Museum of Art holds an antelope and deer hunt from around 1602 to 1604, made for Prince Salim, the future Jahangir, while he held his own court at Allahabad in defiance of his father. A cheetah in a red collar catches a blackbuck. The museum says the image of a cheetah catching a blackbuck was repeated often, and that here it echoes Salim's wish to take the throne from Akbar.

Falcons on the wrist

A falcon points to one of the favourite sports of the court. The Cleveland Museum of Art says falconry, hunting small game with a bird of prey, was popular among the highest ranks of Mughal royalty. It adds that falcons were prized members of royal hunts, and that a painting of a lone falcon on a perch, made at Amber in Rajasthan around 1610, may be a portrait of a favourite bird or of a gift from an ally.

A falcon could also be a gift within the royal family. Cleveland's Akbar and Jahangir Examine a Ghir Falcon while Prince Khusrau Stands Behind, from around 1602 to 1604, shows an aged Akbar under a canopy examining a trained falcon. The museum says the bird seems to be a gift from his son, Prince Salim, who stands before him. A black antelope, a wild animal kept as a pet, wears a harness and a bell at the foot of the steps.

In some later portraits the falcon wears jewels too. In a posthumous portrait of the emperor Muhammad Shah, who ruled from 1719 to 1748, painted in 1764 against a black background, his hunting falcon wears a ruby necklace. In Cleveland's Maharana Jawan Singh of Mewar Holding a Falcon, from around 1835, the ruler looks his bird straight in the eye. The falcon wears a gold plumed cap and a gold necklace, and the museum lists pearls and silk among the materials of the painting.

Hounds and other dogs

In one Rajput hunting scene, dogs work as helpers. Cleveland's Maharana Jagat Singh II Hunting, painted at Udaipur in 1747, is a large picture, 42.5 by 47 cm. The museum says Rajput hunting scenes were often larger than other Indian paintings. Servants set off firecrackers to drive tigers, bears, wild boar, deer and antelope toward the shooting box where the royal party waits. A second group of servants, with dogs, comes from the other side to cut off the animals' escape. An inscription on the back names the ruler, his brother and the others in the hunting party.

A different kind of dog picture comes from Lucknow. Cleveland's Dog Walker, painted at Lucknow in the early 1830s for a buyer linked to the British East India Company, shows an Indian servant trying to follow the British habit of walking dogs on a lead. For the dogs the emperors kept, read royal dogs in history.

Cats in stories and music

Cats appear in court painting in stories and in pictures of music. A Tuti-nama, or Tales of a Parrot, made at the Mughal court around 1560 and now in Cleveland, tells of a cat who served a lion as magistrate of his court, guarding against mice. The cat's son killed every mouse, and the lion, who no longer needed a cat, dismissed the father from his post.

Cleveland's Patamanjari Ragini of Dipak, a Pahari painting from around 1740 to 1750, belongs to a ragamala, a set of paintings of musical moods. The museum says the poem behind it describes a lovesick girl playing with a cat to pass the time, and that performances of this melody are based on the sound of a cat's voice.

Reading the animals in a royal painting

The teams who painted these animals worked in stages, and animal painting could be a specialist's job. Our page on how Indian miniature portraits were made explains who did what.

Your pet in the ruler's place

In a Purrealism portrait, your pet becomes the ruler. In the gallery, the Maharaja portrait shows a golden retriever in a red jewelled turban, seated on a gold throne. The studio examples include a cat in the same Maharaja style. If you are choosing among the nine Indian styles, the style finder further down this page asks a few questions about your pet and suggests one. When you are ready, the portrait studio takes one clear photo of up to 5 MB.