- Artist or Maker
- Fakira
India, active circa 1775-1800 - Title
- Maharaja Raj Singh of Kishangarh (r. 1706-1748) (?)
- Date Made
- circa 1775-1800
- Medium
- Opaque watercolor, gold, and ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet (Sheet): 6 5/8 x 5 in. (16.8275 x 12.7 cm)
Image (Image): 6 1/8 x 4 1/2 in. (15.5575 x 11.43 cm)
Frame: 19 × 14 in. (48.26 × 35.56 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.73.89
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
The devanagari inscription at the bottom of the portrait reads, “kalam phakira catera ki.” It provides the name of the artist, Fakira, but does not identify the subject. Based on its physiognomic resemblance, it may be a posthumous portrait of Maharaja Raj Singh of Kishangarh (r. 1706-1748). For example, see a comparable portrait drawing of Raj Singh attributed to circa 1730-1740 in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2013-68-11). A Kishangarh genre portrait of a woman with a very similar banana leaf and railing backdrop, attributed to circa 1800 and possibly by Fakira, was exhibited at the Galerie Saundarya Lahari, Amsterdam in 1987 (see Joachim Bautze, Indian Miniature Paintings, 1987, no. 45).
Raj Singh stands in profile on a palace terrace with a hedgerow of banana plants leaves as a background. He is nimbate and his mauve-and-gold turban have the turban jewels of a feather plume and a horizontal sarpati, which here has an extended bejeweled band encircling the head. He wears strands of pearls with gold and emerald pendants, a mauve coat (jama) with gold floral sprays, mauve trousers with a gold diaper pattern, a blue-and-gold waist sash (patka), and a yellow-and-gold scarf draped around his shoulders. He has a punch dagger (katar) tucked into his waist sash and grasps the grip of a “Firangi” (European) straight sword with a yellow and blue floral scabbard.
- Selected Bibliography
- Pal, Pratapaditya. The Sacred and Secular in Indian Art. Santa Barbara, CA: University of California, 1974.
