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Attributed to Nainsukh of Guler, Raja Balwant Singh of Jasrota Examining a Painting with Nainsukh
Nainsukh, Museum Rietberg, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (PD-Art, PD-old-100) · File page

Attributed to Nainsukh of Guler

Raja Balwant Singh of Jasrota Examining a Painting with Nainsukh

c. 1745–1750 · Opaque watercolour and gold on paper

A patron studies a picture; the painter waits.

Artist
Attributed to Nainsukh of Guler
Date
c. 1745–1750
Medium
Opaque watercolour and gold on paper
Where it is
Museum Rietberg, Zurich (RVI 1551)
Kind
Pahari painting

A raja sits on a gold seat on a white terrace, holding a small painting close to his face. Men sit and stand around him, and one of them is the painter, Nainsukh. It is one of at least two self-portraits he left.

Nainsukh was born around 1710 in Guler, the younger son of the painter Pandit Seu. Around 1740 he moved to Jasrota and spent close to twenty years working for Balwant Singh, a minor prince who let himself be painted in unguarded moments: having his beard trimmed, writing a letter, performing puja.

When Balwant Singh died in 1763, Nainsukh carried his ashes to Haridwar and wrote an entry in the pilgrims’ register there. That record is one of the main sources for his life. About a hundred of his works survive.

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