Posthumous portrait of Raja Chhatar Singh of Chamba smoking a hookah with his brother and son (c. 1700): Art, History and Details

Posthumous portrait of Raja Chhatar Singh of Chamba smoking a hookah with his brother and son (c. 1700) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

King Chhatar Singh (reigned 1664–90), his thinning facial hair shot through with gray, points to his heart, a gesture common in images of the deceased. With his right hand he grasps the pipe of a hookah, connecting him to his son Udai Singh, who holds the rim of its base. The king’s sword points directly to the boy, further linking them visually. Since hookah smoking connoted elite royal status in Pahari portraiture, this image suggests the passing of power from father to son.

Object facts

• Title: Posthumous portrait of Raja Chhatar Singh of Chamba smoking a hookah with his brother and son
• Date: c. 1700
• Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and ink on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 16.2 x 26.5 cm (6 3/8 x 10 7/16 in.); Overall: 20.3 x 31 cm (8 x 12 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1960.47

A detail from the museum

The back of this painting is lined with reused ledger paper.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Asia Society, Sherman E. Lee, and George Montgomery. Rajput Painting; with an introductory essay and catalogue notes. New York: Asia House, 1960.
• Coates, Robert M.. "The Art Galleries Here and There." The New Yorker (December 31, 1960): 45–47.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.

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.