A seated portrait of Raja Medini Pal of Basohli smoking a huqqa, India, Basohli, circa 1730-35

Acquired from Galerie Soustiel, Paris, August 1994

M.C. David & T. Falk, Miniatures orientales de l'Inde, 5: Dix pages d'album du Haut-Pendjab, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Soustiel, Paris, 1993, no.2

This portrait depicts Raja Medini Pal of Basohli (r.1722-36) seated cross-legged on a pink floral rug resting against a red bolster cushion. Dressed in a red striped turban with a jewelled aigrette and a feather plume, he wears a white full-length jama with single foliate motifs. It is noteworthy that in his jama is tied on the right-hand side, in the contemporary Muslim fashion. A large hoop earring with pearls and a single ruby is visible in his right ear, and a gold necklace with a distinct quartrefoil shaped pendant, which Basohli rulers are often seen wearing, is around his neck. A gold-hilted dagger is tucked into his cummerbund. He holds a huqqa pipe in his left hand and a lotus flower in his right as he gazes wistfully into the distance. A diminutive attendant kneeling in the corner, dressed in a white jama and turban, appears to be tending to the huqqa base.

The present portrait has a similar composition to another painting, also painted in Basohli and dated to circa 1730, now in the National Museum in Delhi, which depicts Medini Pal smoking a huqqa, a dog seated before him, and an attendant standing in the corner. It is possible that this painting is slightly earlier than the present work as the ruler appears without a beard. For a discussion and an illustration of the 1730 portrait, see Archer 1973, vol.I, Basohli 17, p.46.; illus. in vol.II, p.31.

A further portrait depicting Raja Medini Pal being presented with a falcon, painted in Mankot and dated to circa 1730, from the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.83.105.8), shows him seated on a floral carpet, dressed in an almost identical manner with similar jewellery. Another comparable portrait of him standing with a falcon on his left hand, attributed to the Master artist at the court of Mankot, possibly Meju, and similarly dated to circa 1730, is in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich (RVI 1205).

Medini Pal was married to a princess from Guler, and his sister was married to Raja Govardhan Chand of Guler. These close familial ties would have certainly led to the movement of artists and the exchange of artistic ideas between these two Pahari states in this period.