Portrait of Maharaja Pratap Singh (1764–1803) (c. 1793): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Maharaja Pratap Singh (1764–1803) (c. 1793) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Sahib Ram (Indian, active 1745–1803).

The work and its context

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

Maharaja Pratap Singh came to the throne in the princely state of Jaipur in 1778 at the age of 14, about 15 years before this portrait was painted. He was a poet and patron of the arts known for commissioning the famous “Palace of the Winds” in Jaipur. At his court he maintained an atelier of about 50 painters, among whom was a Muslim master, Sah ib Ram, to whom this painting is attributed. Pratap Singh was a devotee of the Hindu god Krishna, and the mark on his forehead testifies to this affiliation. Though highly stylized, this portrait is recognizable as an image of Singh because of his profile and the distinctive curl of hair at the nape of his neck.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Maharaja Pratap Singh (1764–1803)
• Date: c. 1793
• Creator attribution: Sahib Ram (Indian, active 1745–1803)
• Culture: Northwestern India, Rajasthan, Jaipur
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Colored ink drawing
• Dimensions: Overall: 61.4 x 40.5 cm (24 3/16 x 15 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2011.207

Collection credit

Gift of Dr. Norman Zaworski

Further reading listed by the museum

• Pal, Pratapaditya and Catherine Ann Glynn. The Sensuous Line: Indian Drawings from the Paul F. Walter Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1976.

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.