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Raja Bikram Singh of Guler smoking a hookah
c. 1678–90
- Medium
- gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Page: 21.7 x 28.8 cm (8 9/16 x 11 5/16 in.); Image: 17.2 x 24.4 cm (6 3/4 x 9 5/8 in.)
- Culture
- Northern India, Pahari kingdoms, Himachal Pradesh
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase 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
The portrait of Raja Bikram Singh is the earliest depiction of a Guler chief and was produced in Chamba, possibly under the patronage of Raja Chattar Singh (r. 1664–90). The painting bears several features of early portraiture in Chamba—a straight Hookah pipe, striped trousers, large bolsters, and the sitting posture of the raja.
