Maharana Sangram Singh II of Udaipur (r. 1710-1734) was born in 1690 and died in 1734. Sangram Singh II, whose name means "the lion of battle," was named after his renowned ancestor, Maharana Sangram Singh I (r. 1508-1527), who won acclaim as an ardent foe of the Mughal Emperor Babur (r. 1526-1530). During his own reign Sangram Singh II reclaimed territory previously lost to the Mughals and fought the Maratha armies encroaching upon his kingdom from the south. Sangram Singh II was a prolific patron of the arts and architecture. His painters not only produced illuminated manuscripts, but also large-scale paintings that documented the ruler’s public life. Depictions of the hunt, a great pastime of the Rajput courts, were viewed as testimonies of the ruler’s strength and bravery. In this painting, the nimbate Sangram Singh II appears seven times in a continuous narrative that illustrates various stages and activities of the royal hunt held at his favorite hunting ground, Nahar Magra (Tiger Hill), located east of Udaipur. In the right center, he is on a shooting platform (machan) shooting a tiger that had been lured by tethered buffaloes. The wounded tiger then retreats to its mountain lair. A long Hindi inscription on the reverse records that he shot the tiger with one bullet and then a feast was held. It also identifies the many chieftains and courtiers who accompanied him on the hunt, including the Rajput chiefs (sardars) Umed Singh, Takhat Singh, Daulat Singh and Pratap Singh.
