A royal Mughal hunting scene, possibly portraying Jahandar Shah (r.1712-13), India, Mughal, first half 18th century

Private collection, UK, pre-1960s

Thence by descent to the present owner

This large scale painting centres on the figure of a Mughal emperor, quite possibly the short-reigned Jahandar Shah (r.1712-13), given the similarity of his facial features when compared to a standing portrait in the Victoria & Albert Museum (IS.149-1952). Muhammad Shah (r.1719-48) could also be the sitter since although he is generally depicted with moustaches, a painting from the large Clive Album (also in the V&A, IS.133:64/B-1964), attributed to possibly Awadh, circa 1720-25, depicts the emperor with a beard.

In the current painting he is depicted sitting in his howdah atop a grand elephant clothed in fine embroidered saddle cloths. His figure appears vast in comparison to his attendant and mahout, his turbaned head nimbed by a blazing halo, with a double strand of pearls around his neck. Shooting from the hip, he holds a rifle, from the barrel of which flashes a bright shot of light, leading across the centre of the page where the bullet reaches its intended target of a buck, shown slumped at the moment of impact.

Away from the action at the centre of the composition, the great charm of the painting can be witnessed all around the edges where we see in great detail the heads and shoulders of the hunting party's retinue in a grand circle behind shrubs and trees, and within them the inclusion of finely rendered animals including a single-horned rhino, cheetah, lion, bull, more deer and some fantastical fauna. Highly stylised lakes feature to the centre and lower left, the latter with ladies bathing and others carrying water in lotas on their heads towards the royal hunting encampment. In the far distance lies a towering fort on the horizon with a procession led by mounted elephants in its shadow at the upper right.

Stylistically, the faces of the figures are similar to those in the Karnama-i 'Ishq from the Johnson Album in the British Library by the artist Govardhan II, who worked in the first half of the eighteenth century ( see J.P. Losty & M. Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire, London, 2012, pp.196-201). The composition and palette are also comparable to a damaged hunting scene of Muhammad Shah, by the court painter Chitarman II, in a private collection. The overlapping hills and foliage are reminiscent of those in the painting to hand, as is the treatment of the miniature details in the middle and back grounds (see Beach, Fischer, Goswamy and Britschgi, Masters of Indian Painting 1100-1900, Zurich, 2011, vol.II, p.554, fig.7).