Prince Bhawani Singh of Sitamau (r. 1867-1885) with his escort out riding during the reign of his grandfather Maharaja Raj Singh (r. 1802-1867)
Sitamau, Central India, dated V.S. 1912/1855 A.D.
Gouache on paper with gold with gold;
365 by 470 mm.; 14 3/8 by 18 ½ in.
Provenance
Sotheby's, London, 10.XII.1974, lot 86
Galerie Soustiel, Paris, 1974-1983
Private collection, Paris, 1983-2007
Inscriptions
The principal figures are identified by Devanagri inscriptions (available on request).
On the reverse:
A six-line git or song evidently in praise of the prince. A painting dated 1847, of Bhawani Singh’s father Ratan Singh, formerly in the Ehrenfeld collection, has two such poems of praise by different poets written on its reverse, see D. J. Ehnbom, Indian Miniatures: The Ehrenfeld Collection, New York, 1985, p. 172, no. 81.
A second inscription in a cursive hand refers to the prince as bhavar-ji (grandson) and gives his age as eighteen years (umar varsha 18), the name of the horse, Rajragyo, and the date as the first of the bright half of the month of Paus 1912, which equates to December 1855.
Published
Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, Sotheby’s, London, 10th December 1974, p.19, lot 86
Soustiel, J. and M.-C. David, Miniatures Orientales de l’Inde III, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1983, p.107, no. 127
The Sitamau School:
During the nineteenth century a vibrant school of late Rajput painting grew up in Sitamau, in Mandasor state south of Kotah, which was founded in 1695 by Keshor Das, a Rajput chief belonging to a branch of the Rathor dynasty from Jodhpur, which had earlier settled in the nearby state of Ratlam.
Sitamau is known for these distinctive large-scale paintings, usually following a processional format. When first discovered in the 1970s, the relatively few known paintings depicting rulers of the Sitamau family were originally attributed to Ratlam. They provide a revealing picture of the extent to which the traditional values of Rajput courtly life were still vigorously maintained, in spite of British rule, well into the mid-nineteenth century.
Subject
Although Bhawani Singh rides a charger protected by horse armour and wears chain mail while flourishing a sheathed khanda in his right hand, he is apparently on a hunting expedition, as indicated by the presence of a dog keeper leading two hounds as well as by the dress of his party, some of whom carry lances for pig-sticking. The only other person wearing chain mail, as an indication of status, is Maharaja Bhopal Singh, who appears in the lower right-hand corner.
Both Bhawani’s father Ratan Singh (b. circa 1808) and his uncle Abhay Singh predeceased their father Raj Singh, who died in 1885, aged 97. It seems evident that Bhawani Singh was already heir apparent when the picture was painted in 1855, twelve years before his accession in 1867.
Style, attribution and comparative examples
In style, the painting is close to the Ehrenfeld portraits of Bhawani Singh’s father and grandfather by the painter Pyara Chand, a resident of the ancient city of Mandasor, west of Sitamau town. Both pictures were presented to the court at the time of the autumn Dussehra festival in 1847, when Ratan Singh was aged thirty-nine (Ehnbom, p.172, nos.80-81).