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Raja Jai Singh of Amber (reg. c.1621-1667), aged about 60, dressed in a green jama and gold embroidered paijama, seated on a gilt and painted chair, his bare feet on a purple cushion, one hand held out to his grandson Kishan Singh standing before him. The latter is dressed in a plain muslin jama over gold paijama, with a ‘tulvar’ in a red velvet scabbard hanging from his jewelled belt, and holds out his hands respectfully, palms together. The plain green ground merges into blue sky streaked with gold at the top.

By the Bikaner artist, Ruknuddin, c.1670.

Inscribed on reverse in nagari: ‘maharaja sri je simgha kachavahe ri kam rumkadi ro’ (Maharaja Jai Singh Kacchvaha, the work of Ruknuddin); in Urdu in pencil: ‘3 fitah vali ungli(?) baqi sab mem upar shishe par cune ga’e’ (a width of 3 fingers; the rest have all been framed in glass); and ‘Maharaja Jai Singh’, along with various inventory marks.

Opaque water-colour heightened with gold; 226 by 148 mm.

Purchased 1985.

Note: The miniature has been cut down at the sides, perhaps in response to the framing instructions on the reverse; the ends of one of the chair legs and the tip of the scabbard have gone. Raja Jai Singh, the Mirza Raja of Amber, was one of the great figures of 17th century India, and played a principal part in the wars of Aurangzeb, who bestowed on him the mansab of 6000. He died poisoned it is said at the hand of his second son Kirat Singh, at the instigation of Aurangzeb. An earlier very similar drawing is in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (48.1, published in Leach ‘Mughal and other Indian Paintings’, 1995, pp.979-81, dated 1640-45) with the inscription naming the younger man as Ram Singh, Jai Singh's elder son (d. 1683).