Illustration to the musical mode Kanada ragini
Bikaner, Rajasthan, c.1680. By Ruknuddin
Gouache with gold on paper; 16.2 x 13 cm
Ashmolean Museum (EA 1990.6; purchased with the help of the Friends of the Ashmolean) The musical mode Kanada (or Karnata) is named after the Karnataka region of South India, where it may have originated as a hunting melody. This ragini is visualised as a princely warrior, blue-skinned like the god Krishna, who has shown his valour by slaying an elephant. He holds a sword and a severed tusk and he wears a sliver of ivory in his right ear. Since elephants were far too highly valued in India to be hunted in this way, the subject may allude to the story of Krishna's defeat of Kuvalayapida, the demonic elephant of the wicked King Kamsa. Greeting the victorious hero with raised hands are a Rajput prince and his younger companion. An attendant waves a fly-whisk, an emblem of royalty.
This picture is an example of the refined style developed in the late seventeenth century by immigrant Muslim artist families at the Rajput court of Bikaner, in the deserts of western Rajasthan. This early Bikaner style combined Mughal technique with influences from the Deccan. The Maharajas of Bikaner spent long periods campaigning with the imperial armies in the
Deccan or serving there as military governors. The dispersed ragamala series to which this page belonged was made for Maharaja Anup Singh (b.1638, r.1669-98) by his leading artist, Ruknuddin. The conventional iconographic grouping of the four standing figures is treated by Ruknuddin with Mughal finesse of line and Deccani subtlety of colouring. As well as being a successful general, Anup Singh was a Sanskrit scholar and notable patron of the arts. He had a particular love of music, preserving important musical treatises in his library and employing at Bikaner talented performers who had been banished (like the imperial painters) from the court of the pious Aurangzeb. In this painting the leading prince who greets the elephant-slayer resembles portraits of Anup Singh. Such identification with his patron may perhaps have been intended by Ruknuddin. Anup Singh's military career in the south mainly took place in eastern Karnataka, the region which lends its name to this Ragini. It was there, as governor at Adoni. that he eventually died.
Illustration to the musical mode Raga Vibhasa Northern Deccan or southern Rajasthan,
c.1675, Gouache with silver and gold on paper;
19.7x15cm
Ashmolean Museum (EA 1991.154)
Vibhasa ('brightness' or 'radiance') is a musical air played at dawn. Its pictorial image is a noble couple who have passed a night of love together. At daybreak the lady remains languorously asleep on the intricately patterned coverlet. Her lover rises and puts on one slipper, while brandishing a luxuriant floral bow and arrow, like that of the love-god Kama. In some versions, he is shown aiming an arrow at a cock crowing, as if to prevent the day from coming. But here the peacock on the roof remains unscathed. An atmosphere of muted splendour is created by the artist's confident use of decorative detail and the combination of warm colours with more modulated tones. While the iconography and motifs such as the gold sun with human face adhere to the Rajasthani pictorial tradition, the palette suggests Deccani influence. Rajput nobles serving with the Mughal forces in the
Deccan patronised local artists or occasionally brought them back to Rajasthan. It is uncertain where this particular ragamala was painted. It has a Rajasthani provenance, attested by old inventory marks from the Mewar royal collection. Twenty-one of its pages are known to survive, of which two are in the Ashmolean.
Udaipur (Mewar), Rajasthan, c.1670
Gouache with gold on paper; 29.2 x 23 ern
Ashmolean Museum (EA 1991.153)
The Maharanas of Mewar, whose ancestors tenaciously resisted successive Muslim invaders, are considered the premier Rajput chiefs. They capitulated to the Mughals only in 1615, forty years after their fellows, and on terms allowing them a greater degree of independence. For much of the seventeenth century Mewar artists continued to produce robustly expressive manuscript illustrations deriving from the indigenous Early Rajput style. Mughal conventions of portraiture only became established at Udaipur towards the end of the century.
In this early example of Mewar portraiture, Maharana Raj Singh (r.1652-80) rides a rearing, dappled blue horse, starkly silhouetted against a sheer red ground. He wears a flowered gold robe of Mughal type, and he had in fact attended the imperial court as a prince. But his portrait typically reveals an ideal of Rajpul martial heroism more than a closely observed individual. His mustache is flowing, his eye staring and slightly bloodshot. He raises a hand in a gesture of command. Above a thickly brushed white horizon a gold sun blazes, symbolising the legendary descent of the Mewar chiefs from the Sun-god; the gold and black royal parasol held by an attendant is also a solar symbol. The
Maharana's heroic aspect is appropriate, for he was the last Mewar ruler to be a successful warrior. A very similar portrait of Raj Singh, with an olive-green back-ground is dated 1670 (present location unknown).
Udaipur, Rajasthan, c.1700-05
Gouache with gold and silver on paper; 48 x 55 cm
Ashmolean Museum (EA 1989.40; Purchased with the help of the Friends of the Ashmolean) Maharana Amar Singh II of Mewar (r.1698-1710), the grandson of Raj Singh I (21), is seen at worship at the temple of Eklingji, attended by priests, musicians, and the royal entourage. A manifestation of Shiva, Eklingji is worshipped in the form of a lingam (phallic icon) with four human faces. He is the ancient tutelary deity of the Mewar rulers. Royal processions from Udaipur, the
capital from the late sixteenth century, to the temple of Eklingji, in a hilly defile to the north, were a regular state function. Amar Singh sits before the deity, which is adorned with jewels, garlands and canopies and cobras in gold and silver. A Brahmin priest and assistant officiate. In the courtyard, attendants carry regalia and musicians of the court and temple play horns, cymbals and drums. Other members of the royal escort stand outside in the temple enclosure. Beyond the outer wall, mahouts and grooms wait with the elephants and horses. The temple architecture is depicted schematically, but with enough detail in the superstructure to be recognisable. The agile temple monkeys and their young are seen on the roofs and in the wooded background. Brush drawing on a plain ground predominates and colours and gold are only sparingly used, yet this is a completed work. It is an exceptionally large and elaborate example of the finely stippled semi-grisaille style often employed by the leading artist of Arnar Singh's reign. This anonymous master did much to consolidate
Mughal conventions of portraiture at Udaipur, though these were thoroughly assimilated to the bolder Rajput vision. Here, the delicate execution of individual figures and animals is combined with a deliberately simplified setting.
Mughal, c.1720-25
Gouache with gold and silver on paper; 39 x 26.8 ern
Bodleian Library (MS Ouseley Add. 173, f.27)
In the reign of Muhammad Shah (1719-48) the Mughal empire crumbled but art continued to flourish. Known as Rangila ('Pleasure-loving'), the insouciant Emperor devoted himself to the enjoyment of poetry, music, fine wine and food and beautiful women. If news arrived of some military setback he would console himself by contemplating his magnificent gardens. This went on for twenty years. But in 1739 Nadir Shah of Persia sacked Delhi and took away a huge treasure, including the Peacock Throne of Shah Jahan. If Muhammad Shah's empire was more show than
substance, so also is this portrait, in which he strikes a martial attitude borrowed from equestrian portraits of the genuinely bellicose Aurangzeb, some sixty years earlier. He appears helmeted, chainmailed and armed with lance, bow and quivers in readiness for battle. He displays not just one but a double radiant nimbus. His rearing charger also is splendidly arrnoured. hennaed and tasselled. The background is the traditional pale green of earlier Mughal portraiture, and the foreground receding to a near horizon is strewn conventionally with flowers and grass tufts. Above, a portentous gold-red light fringes the puffy snailshell clouds. High among the clouds, the Emperor's name is inscribed in tiny letters. The illusion of imperial glory is evoked with the technical mastery of the Mughal studio in better days.
