Johnson 1,18

Raja Anand Dev (c.1690-c.1715) and Raja Dhrub Dev (1703-35).

By Patak Chand, Faizabad, c.1770.

Richard Johnson Collection. Purchased 1807.

Inscribed above right in Persian: ‘tasvir-i raja anant dev raja-i janbu’ (picture of Raja Anand Dev, Raja of Jammu); above left: ‘tasvir-i raja dhrup dev, baradar-i haqiqi-i raja-i janbu’ (picture of Raja Dhrub Dev, own (or rightful) brother of the Raja of Jammu); below: ‘amal-i patak chand’ (the work of Patak Chand).

Gouache with gold; on an album page with blue and pink borders sprinkled with gold.

218 by 314 mm; page 372 by 496 mm.

Reproduced: W.G. Archer (1973), II, 134.

Raja Anand Dev of Bahu (Jammu) is seated smoking with Raja Dhrub Dev of Jammu. Anand Dev is on the right, dressed in a decorated white jama and gold turban and ‘patka,’ with an attendant ‘chauri-’bearer behind him in a pink-striped jama. Dhrub Dev is on the left, dressed in trousers beneath a diaphanous coat tied loosely with a gold ‘patka,’ and his ‘chauri’-bearer is in a yellow jama. Cushions and a pale yellow carpet are spread on the terrace. There is a formal line of trees beyond the terrace fence, and a pale blue sky with slight clouds and pink tinting.

Note: Patak Chand may well have come from Delhi, but his work can be attributed to Oudh on grounds of style. The dusky treatment of the hands and faces coupled with the subdued pigments of the costumes are not unlike the work of Mihr Chand. But the picture as a whole is clearly modelled on the Jammu style, and is possibly a copy of a particular Jammu original. W.G. Archer ((1973), I, 191) points out the historical implications of the presence in the picture of the leaders of the Bahu branch and the true Jammu branch of the Jammu family which were fused under Dhrub Dev c.1715, and the possible reflection upon their relative status. The costume of the courtiers is in the style of Jammu paintings of the early eighteenth century, but the treatment of the trees behind the terrace indicate a date closer to the middle of the century or later for a Jammu original. The circumstances under which a Pahari painting could have been brought to Oudh at this period remain obscure, and as yet no other example of an Oudh version of a Pahari painting is known. Another miniature signed by Patak Chand is in the Chester Beatty Library (42.4).