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Maharana Jagat Singh II Hunting
Jugarsi, son of Jiva (Indian, active mid-1700s)
1747
- Medium
- Gum tempera and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 42.5 x 47 cm (16 3/4 x 18 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput kingdom of Mewar, Udaipur, Court of Jagat Singh (reigned 1734-51)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
One of the favorite pastimes of the Rajput nobility was hunting, a subject frequently depicted in secular painting in Rajasthan. Often much larger than other Indian paintings, hunting scenes glorified the pleasures and splendors of these stately affairs. This colorful painting depicts a royal hunt conducted by the Maharana Jagat Singh II of Udaipur. An inscription on the reverse side of the painting mentions the Maharana's name along with the hunting party's other participants, including the Maharana's brother.
The hunt takes place in a detailed landscape of hills and varied vegetation. The animals (tiger, bear, wild boar, deer, stag, and antelope) are rounded up and diverted by servants (who shoot firecrackers) toward the shooting box at the center of the composition, where the royal members of the hunting party await their prey. Another group of servants with dogs approaches from the opposite direction to cut off the animals' route of escape. Some beasts are already killed or wounded, while others are trying desperately to run for their lives.
