Maharaja Shri Anand Singh-ji and His Consort (1729): Art, History and Details

Maharaja Shri Anand Singh-ji and His Consort (1729) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Ustad Murad (Indian, active 1700s).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The artist used metallic paint to indicate the sumptuous materials of the carpet covered with roses that marks the place of the royal couple. The king affectionately slings one arm around the shoulders of his queen, who carelessly allows wine to flow out of the bottle. A gigantic indigo-and-gold cushion provides their backdrop, excluding their attendant. The blue and white arabesques in the spandrels—triangular spaces above the arch—point to the couple’s international sophistication; the elite in northwestern India imported blue-and-white Dutch tiles and Chinese porcelain.

Object facts

• Title: Maharaja Shri Anand Singh-ji and His Consort
• Date: 1729
• Creator attribution: Ustad Murad (Indian, active 1700s)
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Rajput Kingdom of Bikaner
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera, silver, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 22.2 x 16.8 cm (8 3/4 x 6 5/8 in.); Miniature: 15.2 x 10.8 cm (6 x 4 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.195

A detail from the museum

The silver carpet marks the royal window where subjects can come to see him.

Collection credit

Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.