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Lot Essay
INSCRIPTIONS:
Smudged inscription in upper margin part deciphered as referring to the group of elephants. The verso inscribed Mahārāṇā Saṅgrāma Siṅgha-jī 'Maharana Sangram Singh [II]'; Mewar inventory number 13/316 and valued at 50[?] rupees.
The Mughal Emperor Babur describes the elephant in his Baburnama, noting that it is noble and intelligent. Most of his description however is about how elephants relate to humans, how they can be used, and how valuable they are. In Akbar’s illustrated versions of his grandfather’s work dating from around 1585-90 it is elephants that are freely roaming the landscape that are depicted (British Library Or. 3714, f.378r for example; another example possibly also intended for a Baburnama is in an album now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, supp.persan 1572, f.11). Such depictions are rare. Just as the emperor wrote far more about the uses of elephants, so the vast majority of depictions show elephants in the service of humans, usually in battle or as prized possessions. Portraits of elephants were commissioned and each animal was known to have certain characteristics.
Elephants in the wild are occasionally depicted, either as illustrations as in the Baburnama, or usually as elements of a narrative depiction. Thus a drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum has the lower half of the painting showing elephants in a landscape and it is only in the upper half that the action takes place (inv.IM.155-1914). Similarly the scenes of elephant hunts can also serve as an excuse to show the elephants in their natural habitat, as observed by artists at Bikaner (The Elephant hunt of Maharaja Anup Singh of Bikaner now in Cincinnatti Museum of Art, 1979.129) or the artist Niju at Kota ('The Elephant Hunt', circa 1730-40, Howard Hodgkin Collection, now Metropolitan Museum, New York, 2022.217). Probably nowhere were elephants as celebrated in painting as they were in Bundi and Kota, mostly in a human related context, although a wonderful depiction of the month of Jyeshtha (summer) from mid-18th century Bundi is another celebration of a far smaller elephants in landscape (CSMVS Museum, Mumbai, acc.no. 55.97; Kalpana Desai, Jewels on the Crescent, Mumbai, 2008, no.116).
The present painting is remarkable in its extraordinary celebration of the elephant in its natural habitat. There is not a human to be seen. There is clearly an intention to illustrate all aspects of elephantine behaviour, from conception in the top left corner to extreme old age, literally on the ‘other side’ lower right. But this is not depicted as an inevitable process; in between elephants are gambolling, play-fighting (there is no blood drawn), rubbing against trees, spraying each other, marching, swimming, and enjoying almost every other activity one can think of. Right in the centre, small but inevitably drawing one’s eye in, is an elephant with head raised using its trunk to create a fountain, a scene of pure adolescent joy.
The painting has many of the features noted in the hunting scene (lot 48) and clearly shows influence from the Mughal Court. It is however by an artist who is combining the Mughal elements with more typical Mewari features, also including Bundi-Kota references. The background hillside is seen as blocks of different colours, and the rocks dividing them have been flattened when compared with the Mughal originals both in shape and colour. The trees show the typical Mewar trait of multiple repetition of similar leaves in different tones of green. Although Sangram Singh’s name is on the reverse, there is none on the stiff formality of the painting that he was best known for commissioning later in his reign; this has much more of the vibrant vitality of the best works prepared for Anup Singh. The density of composition and scale are very comparable to those of a scene of Maharana Anup Singh in an elephant howdah at a tiger hunt dated to circa 1700-1705 (Andrew Topsfield, 'Court Painting at Udaipur: Art under the Patronage of the Maharajas of Mewar', Artibus Asiae. Supplementum, Vol. 44, Zurich, 2002), pl.109a and b, p.132).
Smudged inscription in upper margin part deciphered as referring to the group of elephants. The verso inscribed Mahārāṇā Saṅgrāma Siṅgha-jī 'Maharana Sangram Singh [II]'; Mewar inventory number 13/316 and valued at 50[?] rupees.
The Mughal Emperor Babur describes the elephant in his Baburnama, noting that it is noble and intelligent. Most of his description however is about how elephants relate to humans, how they can be used, and how valuable they are. In Akbar’s illustrated versions of his grandfather’s work dating from around 1585-90 it is elephants that are freely roaming the landscape that are depicted (British Library Or. 3714, f.378r for example; another example possibly also intended for a Baburnama is in an album now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, supp.persan 1572, f.11). Such depictions are rare. Just as the emperor wrote far more about the uses of elephants, so the vast majority of depictions show elephants in the service of humans, usually in battle or as prized possessions. Portraits of elephants were commissioned and each animal was known to have certain characteristics.
Elephants in the wild are occasionally depicted, either as illustrations as in the Baburnama, or usually as elements of a narrative depiction. Thus a drawing in the Victoria and Albert Museum has the lower half of the painting showing elephants in a landscape and it is only in the upper half that the action takes place (inv.IM.155-1914). Similarly the scenes of elephant hunts can also serve as an excuse to show the elephants in their natural habitat, as observed by artists at Bikaner (The Elephant hunt of Maharaja Anup Singh of Bikaner now in Cincinnatti Museum of Art, 1979.129) or the artist Niju at Kota ('The Elephant Hunt', circa 1730-40, Howard Hodgkin Collection, now Metropolitan Museum, New York, 2022.217). Probably nowhere were elephants as celebrated in painting as they were in Bundi and Kota, mostly in a human related context, although a wonderful depiction of the month of Jyeshtha (summer) from mid-18th century Bundi is another celebration of a far smaller elephants in landscape (CSMVS Museum, Mumbai, acc.no. 55.97; Kalpana Desai, Jewels on the Crescent, Mumbai, 2008, no.116).
The present painting is remarkable in its extraordinary celebration of the elephant in its natural habitat. There is not a human to be seen. There is clearly an intention to illustrate all aspects of elephantine behaviour, from conception in the top left corner to extreme old age, literally on the ‘other side’ lower right. But this is not depicted as an inevitable process; in between elephants are gambolling, play-fighting (there is no blood drawn), rubbing against trees, spraying each other, marching, swimming, and enjoying almost every other activity one can think of. Right in the centre, small but inevitably drawing one’s eye in, is an elephant with head raised using its trunk to create a fountain, a scene of pure adolescent joy.
The painting has many of the features noted in the hunting scene (lot 48) and clearly shows influence from the Mughal Court. It is however by an artist who is combining the Mughal elements with more typical Mewari features, also including Bundi-Kota references. The background hillside is seen as blocks of different colours, and the rocks dividing them have been flattened when compared with the Mughal originals both in shape and colour. The trees show the typical Mewar trait of multiple repetition of similar leaves in different tones of green. Although Sangram Singh’s name is on the reverse, there is none on the stiff formality of the painting that he was best known for commissioning later in his reign; this has much more of the vibrant vitality of the best works prepared for Anup Singh. The density of composition and scale are very comparable to those of a scene of Maharana Anup Singh in an elephant howdah at a tiger hunt dated to circa 1700-1705 (Andrew Topsfield, 'Court Painting at Udaipur: Art under the Patronage of the Maharajas of Mewar', Artibus Asiae. Supplementum, Vol. 44, Zurich, 2002), pl.109a and b, p.132).