Bhima, Kesu Ram, Bhopa and Nathu
Maharana Ari Singh with His Courtiers Being Entertained at the Jagniwas Water Palace
A Udaipur court at leisure on its island palace.
- Artist
- Bhima, Kesu Ram, Bhopa and Nathu
- Date
- Dated 1767
- Medium
- Ink, opaque watercolour and gold on paper
- Where it is
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1994.116)
- Kind
- Rajput painting
A white marble palace fills the sheet. Inside its open hall the Maharana sits among rows of courtiers while performers move across a black-and-white chequered floor. Gardens and a parapet edge the water. Four painters are named for the work. The page is about 68 by 84 centimetres.
The palace is Jag Niwas on Lake Pichola in Udaipur, built in white marble around 1743–46 for Maharana Jagat Singh II as a summer retreat. It is now the Lake Palace hotel.
Ari Singh II came to the throne in 1762. His temper drove nobles from his court, and he was assassinated in 1773. In this picture none of that shows. The setting is drawn as carefully as the people, and the palace gets more room than the prince.
