Rajput court portraits: kings on horseback, at the hunt and at court

This page is about one part of Rajput painting: the portraits of the rulers themselves. It covers how the kings of Rajasthan were shown, on thrones, on horseback, at the hunt and among musicians, and how some courts kept careful records of who painted what. For an overview of the Rajput schools and how the name came about, read what is Rajput painting. For the place of these courts among all of India's royal painting traditions, see the Indian court painting guide.

From illustrated stories to royal portraits

The early Rajasthani paintings mostly illustrated poems, religious stories and music. India's National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) says that during the 1700s, painting moved away from texts and toward the activities and pastimes of the royal court. At Mewar, NCERT describes a growing interest in portraits in that century, along with large court scenes, hunts, festivals and sports.

Jodhpur started even earlier. NCERT says that in the 1640s, under Maharaja Jaswant Singh, who ruled from 1638 to 1678, Jodhpur painters began to record the court in portraits and scenes of court life. This habit lasted until the 1800s, when photography took over the task of recording events. Many portraits of Jaswant Singh survive.

Some rulers clearly enjoyed being painted. NCERT calls Rao Bhao Singh of Bundi, who ruled from 1659 to 1682, an enthusiastic patron who commissioned numerous portraits of himself.

Where the Rajput halo came from

A Rajput king in a painting often has a circle of light around his head. The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London explains its origin in the record for a fine brush drawing of Raja Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur with his relatives, made between 1640 and 1650. The museum says the halo of rays was borrowed from Mughal artists, who had taken it from Western art, and that the same sign had appeared much earlier in Buddhist paintings in India. The V&A adds that the quality of the drawing suggests an artist trained in the Mughal court style. Our page on Mughal royal portraits explains how the halo was used at the Mughal court.

By the 1700s the halo was normal at the Rajput courts. A V&A painting from Mewar, made in the 1750s, shows the boy ruler Raj Singh II with a halo while he and his nobles watch dancers at night in the City Palace in Udaipur. The museum says he came to the throne in 1754 at the age of ten and looks only ten or eleven in the picture. A Bundi painting from the late 1700s gives Rao Umed Singh a halo too, in the middle of a fight with a wild boar.

Kings on horseback

Portraits of rulers on horseback were a speciality of Bundi and Kota. NCERT says the two schools produced a series of fine equestrian portraits, which means portraits of a rider on a horse.

The most famous is a portrait of Aniruddha Singh of Bundi, painted by the artist Tulchi Ram in 1680. NCERT says the artist showed speed by leaving out the ground completely: the horse gallops so high that no ground is visible. The names of Tulchi Ram and of the prince are written on the back. The name on the front is Bharat Singh, the youngest son of Rao Chattarsal, so some scholars think he is the rider. Most scholars think it shows the young Aniruddha Singh before he became king. The painting is in the National Museum in New Delhi.

At Jodhpur, the warrior Durgadas Rathore became a popular subject. NCERT says he fought a 25-year war against the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb to win back Marwar for Ajit Singh, and that his equestrian portraits became popular during Ajit Singh's reign.

The hunt as a portrait

At Kota, the hunt was the main way to show a king. NCERT says Kota excelled at hunting scenes and shows an obsession with the chase. Umed Singh came to the throne at the age of 10, and his regent, Zalim Singh, kept the young king busy with hunting while he governed. The paintings of this period served as flattering records of his exploits, and NCERT says even the women of the court took part.

The V&A holds several of these hunting portraits:

• Maharao Umed Singh of Kota on horseback, spear raised against a wild boar, with three attendants, against a bright yellow background, dated 1771.
• Raja Durjan Sal of Kota hunting a lion in a forest, dated 1778.
• Rao Umed Singh of Bundi, with a halo, slashing at a boar that has attacked his horse, from the late 1700s. The horse is falling, legs in the air, while the king stays in the saddle.

NCERT adds more examples. Bishen Singh of Bundi, who ruled from 1771 to 1821, loved hunting, and paintings of him hunting wild animals are common from his reign. At Mewar, a painting from 1744 shows Maharana Jagat Singh II riding through the countryside on the way to hunt with hawks. NCERT also lists a Kota painting of Maharaja Ram Singh I hunting lions at Mukundgarh in 1695.

NCERT describes Kota paintings as spontaneous, drawn with flowing lines like handwriting, with marked shading, most of all on the double eyelid. It says Kota artists excelled at animals and combat. Our page on animals in Indian court painting looks at the hounds, horses and elephants in these scenes.

Portraits of rulers at leisure

Not every portrait was about war or hunting. Many show a ruler at ease with his family or his musicians.

NCERT says the whiskered face of Rao Budh Singh of Bundi can be seen in many portraits, and that he supported painting even though he lost his kingdom four times. A V&A painting from the 1740s shows him with his two sons and an attendant, smoking a huqqa (a water pipe), in a chequered orange and yellow garment.

Another Bundi portrait, from the 1780s, shows Raja Ajit Singh seated under a canopy watching a young kathak dancer. The V&A describes his lavish turban jewels, rows of pearl necklaces with gem-set pendants, and bracelets on both wrists.

Courts that kept records

Rajput paintings are often hard to date, but some courts kept good records.

Bikaner

NCERT calls Bikaner one of the best documented schools of painting. When a painting was finished, the court archivist wrote the name of the master artist and the date on the back. Because of this, a master's name sometimes appears on work painted by his pupils. The master sometimes added final touches, a step called gudarayi, which literally means "to lift". Artists worked in group studios called Mandi, which also repaired old paintings (marammat) and made copies (nakals). NCERT says Bikaner is the only school with a custom of painting portraits of its artists, and that the court kept daily diaries called Bahis.

Mewar

NCERT quotes the inscription on a Mewar ragamala page (a painting of a musical mood) dated Samvat 1685, which is 1628 CE. It names the ruler Jagat Singh, the city of Udaipur and the painter Sahibdin, who is called a chitara, "someone who paints". The painting is described as "written", because the painter's goal was to match the verse on the page.

Jaipur

NCERT says Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur, who ruled from 1699 to 1743, had a skilled portrait painter named Sahibram in his workshop, and that the hero in many of his story sets looks like the king. Jaipur preferred large paintings and produced life-size portraits. Copies were made by tracing and pouncing. Pouncing means pricking tiny holes along the lines of a drawing and dusting powder through them onto a fresh sheet. The V&A holds a brush drawing of Raja Jagat Singh of Jaipur made during his reign (1803 to 1818) that is pricked in exactly this way.

Portrait habits, court by court

From Rajput portraits to a Rajput Warrior portrait of your pet

The Rajput Warrior style on Purrealism takes its name from these rulers. In the gallery, the Rajput Warrior portrait shows a dog in armour with a fort at sunset behind it, and the studio examples include a German Shepherd in the same style. Hunting and riding portraits suit an active dog, and our page on Pahari painting shows the quieter portraits made in the hill courts north of Rajasthan. When you are ready, the portrait studio takes one clear photo of up to 5 MB.