Collections: Asian Art

Attributed to the painter Ghasi. Maharana Jawan Singh of Mewar Receiving the Governor General of India, Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, February 8th, 1832. India, Rajasthan, Udaipur, circa 1832. Opaque watercolor, gold, and silver on cloth, 74 7/16 x 50 3/8 in. (189 x 128 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Alvin E. Friedman-Kien Foundation, Inc., in honor of Dr. Bertram H. Schaffner's 90th Birthday, 2002.34

This large painting depicts an important meeting that took place at the 1832 Ajmer darbar, the first major gathering of India's Rajput rulers with the British governor general. A darbar is an official audience between rulers that includes a series of strictly regulated ceremonial meetings heralded by gun salutes and punctuated by an exchange of nazar (gifts). Maharana Jawan Singh of Mewar (ruled 1828–38), identified here by his gold nimbus and gold patka (sash), receives Lord Bentinck, who is formally attired in an orange coat. They share a throne made specially for the occasion. Jawan Singh's gifts to the British include multicolored bolts of cloth laid out on the white carpet before the stepped platform.

This painting has been attributed to Ghasi, a nineteenth-century court artist known for his clearly delineated darbar paintings that provide a visual reflection of the attention paid to protocol and hierarchy in nineteenth-century India. Like most painters of his time, Ghasi would have been trained primarily as a manuscript illustrator, so he was used to working on a small scale. As a result, even his large compositions have a miniaturist quality, with many small figures arranged within compartmentalized spaces.