Untitled

Shiva and Dayal

dated 1744 · Opaque watercolor, ink and gold on paper · Asian Art

This spectacular panoramic vista of the Mewar landscape depicts a royal hunting party in a series of consecutive vignettes, creating a continuous narrative. The aerial perspective, reflecting the plunging views of terrain offered from many Rajput forts, was an innovation of the Mewar school, perhaps combined here with a new awareness of European cartography. The rays of golden sun—the insignia that Rajput princes displayed on their standards—add a surreal if somewhat celestial dimension to the composition. This painting is remarkable for its complex topography, differentiated with imaginatively devised pictorial devices—hillocks, streams, fields—each deployed to create a landscape of the imagination. The large scale of the work is typical of mid-eighteenth-century Mewar painting, as is the likelihood that multiple artists worked on it in a palace studio environment.

Artist

Shiva and Dayal

Date

dated 1744

Medium

Opaque watercolor, ink and gold on paper

Culture

Western India, Rajasthan, Udaipur

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Fletcher Fund, 1996