Raja Medini Pal of Basohli (r. 1722-1736) Being Presented with a Falcon

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Raja Medini Pal of Basohli (r. 1722-1736) Being Presented with a Falcon

India, Jammu and Kashmir, Mankot, circa 1730
Drawings; watercolors
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Image (Image): 6 5/8 x 9 3/8 in. (16.8275 x 23.8125 cm) Sheet (Sheet): 8 1/4 x 11 in. (20.955 x 27.94 cm) Frame: 14 × 19 in. (35.56 × 48.26 cm)
From the Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, Museum Associates Purchase (M.83.105.8)
South and Southeast Asian Art
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

Raja Medini Pal of Basohli (r. 1722-1736) in present-day Himachal Pradesh was born in 1714. At the age of eight in 1722 he succeeded his father, Raja Dhiraj Pal (r....
Raja Medini Pal of Basohli (r. 1722-1736) in present-day Himachal Pradesh was born in 1714. At the age of eight in 1722 he succeeded his father, Raja Dhiraj Pal (r. circa 1690-1720), and ruled under the regency of his uncle Mian Ratan Pal and the vizier Harkha. In 1730 he married a daughter of Raja Dalip Singh of Guler (r. 1695-1741). He died at age twenty-two in 1736. In this painting from circa 1730, a beardless Medini Pal seated on a carpet is presented with a tethered falcon by a falconer. He holds the falcon on an embroidered falconer’s glove worn on his left hand. Another falcon is partially concealed in his gloveless right hand. Medini Pal has a red turban with a feather plume, a hoop earring with two pearls and a ruby, a gold choker with a ruby pendant, and a gold necklace with the idiosyncratic quatrefoil-shaped pendant worn by Basohli rulers for royal identification and proclamatory purposes. He wears a white coat (jama) with floral sprays and a red brocade waist sash. He has Shaiva sectarian markings on his forehead. A second falconer stands on the right side of the painting, while on left side is an attendant holding a sword in a cloth bag and an embroidered handkerchief. A comparable Mankot portrait of a beardless Medini Pal attributed to circa 1730 is in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich (RVI 1205). A similar Basohli portrait of a bearded Medini Pal attributed to circa 1735, the year before he died, is in a private collection (see William Archer, 1973, 2:34 Basohli 19).
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Bibliography

  • Rosenfield, John.  The Arts of India and Nepal: The Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection.  Boston:  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1966.
  • Pal, Pratapaditya.  The Sacred and Secular in Indian Art.  Santa Barbara, CA:  University of California, 1974.
  • Rosenfield, John.  The Arts of India and Nepal: The Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection.  Boston:  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1966.
  • Pal, Pratapaditya.  The Sacred and Secular in Indian Art.  Santa Barbara, CA:  University of California, 1974.
  • Trabold, J. The Art of India, An Historical Profile.  Northridge, CA:  California State University Press, 1975.
  • Feinblatt, Ebria; G. Knox; S. Gutwirth; C.A. Glynn; G. Kuwayama and Stephanie Barron.  Los Angeles County Museum of Art Bulletin, 1979.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 25 (1980).
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