Untitled

Bakhta

ca. 1775 · Ink and opaque watercolor on paper. · Asian Art

Rajput paintings are often jewel-like in their minute details and labored finish. A drawing such as this one shows how swift, expressive, and varied the Rajput artist's line could be, whether in suggesting the bulge of a muscular forearm, the taut belly of a horse, or the wiry bristle of a Rajput mustache. Equestrian portraits were a common, formal, and often stiff means of honoring a nobleman or warrior. This portrait, however, appears to be a caricature of its subject, whose mustache and beard curl back on his face with scratchy pomposity and whose horse seems to bend and whinny under his prodigious weight. Deogarh was a tikhana, or a feudatory state, of Mewar, situated to the north.

Artist

Bakhta

Date

ca. 1775

Medium

Ink and opaque watercolor on paper.

Culture

India (Rajasthan, Devgarh)

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Purchase, Florence and Herbert Irving Gift and Rogers Fund, 1997