Maharaja Gaj Singh I of Marwar (1595-1638) seated with noblemen, India, Rajasthan, Marwar, early 18th century

Ex-collection Comte Vitold de Marie-Golish (1921-2003)

Arts D'Orient, Drouot Paris, 13 November 2001, lot 93

Private collection, London

Gaj Singh I, was the eldest son of Sawai Raja Sur Singh or Suraj Singh, the Rathore Rajput ruler of the Kingdom of Marwar. Gaj Singh reigned as the Maharaja of Marwar from 1619 – 38. He is depicted in this durbar scene seated in the centre on a silver throne with rows of noblemen seated and standing before and behind him. Three foreign dignitaries wearing Persian style turbans and white robes are seated at the far right.

The turbans and dress of Maharaja Gaj Singh and his accompanying noblemen are based on earlier seventeenth century prototypes. The figure of Gaj Singh can be compared with his depiction in a splendid painting dated to circa 1630 by the Mughal artist Bichitr where he shares a princely seat with Raja Jai Singh of Amber. Formerly in the Heeramaneck collection, the work is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (L.69.24.246; illus. R. Crill, Marwar Painting, Mumbai, 1999, p.38, fig.17. His face in profile with a drooping moustache, the curls of hair in his sideburn, the folds of his turban, are all very similar. Crill suggests that this Mughal painting served as the prototype for several later portraits of Gaj Singh painted in Rajasthan after his death in 1638 (ibid., p.39). For further comparable portraits dating from the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, see figs.18-20, pp.40-42. For an eighteenth century portrait of Gaj Singh which sold at auction, see Sotheby’s New York, 21 March 2012, lot 226.

It has been suggested that this painting was rescued from a fire which severely damaged the paintings library at Jodhpur in 1960.