Posthumous portrait of Raja Chhatar Singh of Chamba smoking a hookah, c. 1700
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Posthumous portrait of Raja Chhatar Singh of Chamba smoking a hookah

c. 1700

Medium
Gum tempera and ink on paper
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
Page: 19.7 x 16.4 cm (7 3/4 x 6 7/16 in.); Image: 15.3 x 12.6 cm (6 x 4 15/16 in.)
Culture
Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
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

Raja Chattar Singh’s reign, from 1664 to 1690, is considered to be a period of prosperity for Chamba. During that time, boundaries of the kingdoms were expanded, and the economy thrived. He is best known for defying the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb’s orders to demolish all the Hindu temples in his realm. Instead, he installed copper gilt wooden umbrellas on the temples, many of which exist to this day.