The grinning odd couple depicted in this double portrait, and also reproduced in M.2001.229.3 and in a painting in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2004-149-59), represent a genre of Indian court paintings portraying exotic Europeans (farangis) as isolated subjects, which due to their exaggerated features and loss of historical context may have come to be viewed as parodies.
The visual source of these enigmatic figures may be the representation of fools in 16th- and 17th-century northern European paintings and prints illustrating the Dutch proverb “the world feeds many fools.” The figures touching of their noses with their forefingers has been said to suggest the use of snuff, but the gesture may have also found resonance in India because of its resemblance to a well-known hand position expressing astonishment. This distinctive gesture, in which the index finger and sometimes the middle finger are held touching the chin or lips, has been featured in Indian art for centuries. The appeal of these eccentric figures was such that they were often repeated as stock motifs with minor variations, including being shown individually rather than as a pair, and with sundry changes of gender, clothing, hand positions, and objects held.
