Umed Singh of Kota Hunting Lions (c. 1785–1790): Art, History and Details

Umed Singh of Kota Hunting Lions (c. 1785–1790) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A family of lions with two cubs is caught unawares by royal huntsmen amid a tangle of jungle by the side of a stream. The adult lions twist around, startled by the sound of the horn intended to drive them out of the safety of their glade. The men, other than the ruler at the left, have turbans camouflaged with leaves, and they surround the lions, ready to let spears and arrows fly. Before embarking on a costly finished painting, Indian artists often made preparatory sketches, in which they worked out the particulars of the composition. Whiter sections indicate areas where erasures and adjustments were made. Freer in execution, the drawings are often more evocative and exuberant than the more formal full-color finished paintings.

Object facts

• Title: Umed Singh of Kota Hunting Lions
• Date: c. 1785–1790
• Culture: India, Rajasthan, Kota, 18th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: brush drawing with slight color on paper
• Dimensions: Overall: 39 x 52 cm (15 3/8 x 20 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1964.51

Collection credit

Mrs. J. Livingstone Taylor Collection by Exchange

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.