Recto: According to the long contemporaneous devanagari Hindi inscription in black ink, this alluring portrait by the Bikaner artist Nure was painted in 1743 when he was sixteen years old and visiting the home of a textile printer where he saw an earlier portrait that he then copied.
“[Done by] Nure [Nuruddin] at the age of 16.
Leaf 1, Dated 4th [day] of the bright half of the Phalguna [February-March] month, V.S. 1800 [A.D. 1743]
Leaf 1, executed by Nure, son of Usta Umardin. A copy [of an earlier such portrait] is in
Gulam Rasul Chhipa [textile printer]’s house which he [Nure] saw and after seeing that he executed it.” (Translation by Naval Krishna.)
The Arabic inscription in black ink confirms Nure as the artist. The Urdu couplet in red, which was perhaps added later by a collector to convey the spirit of the portrait, reads: “My heart somewhere [with the woman in the portrait] is being captured and thus I begin to get fever of love.” (Translation by Naval Krishna.)
Contrary to the specific information furnished in the inscriptions, there is no known son of Umardin named Nure according to the published genealogies of the Bikaner painters and the date of 1743 does not fall within Nure’s generally accepted dates of 1690-1715. Thus, the full backstory of this evocative portrait remains an enigma.
Verso: Bikaneri artists created small portraits to present (nazar) to their patrons during festivals. Images of Krishna, such as this example, were the most favored subjects.
