Portrait of Raja Jagat Singh of Nurpur (reigned 1618–46) (probably 1619): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Raja Jagat Singh of Nurpur (reigned 1618–46) (probably 1619) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Bichitr (Indian, active c. 1615–50).

The work and its context

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

Jagat Singh was a prince from a small kingdom in the western Himalayan foothills who grew up at the imperial Mughal court of Jahangir and his queen Nur Jahan. He was given the title of prince in 1619, and this painting may commemorate that event. Very few nobles from the hill states had positions at the Mughal court at this time, so his portrait is a rare imperial Mughal painting. The emperor and his favorite wife frequently visited Nurpur, named “City of Light” in their honor, to hunt and relax, and Prince Jagat Singh was a favorite of the queen. She interceded on his behalf in 1624, when he joined a rebellion to dethrone her husband.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Raja Jagat Singh of Nurpur (reigned 1618–46)
• Date: probably 1619
• Creator attribution: Bichitr (Indian, active c. 1615–50)
• Culture: Mughal India, Court of Jahangir (reigned 1605 - 27), possibly Lahore
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Painting only: 19.1 x 11.6 cm (7 1/2 x 4 9/16 in.); Page: 41 x 32.7 cm (16 1/8 x 12 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Mughal
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2013.324

A detail from the museum

Jagat Singh, shown in this miniature, was a favorite of the Mughal queen.

Collection credit

Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Mace, Sonya Rhie, Mohsen Ashtiany, Catherine Glynn, Pedro Moura Carvalho, Marcus Fraser, and Ruby Lal. Mughal Paintings: Art and Stories: the Cleveland Museum of Art. London: D Giles Limited, 2016.

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.