The Elephant Meghabaran goes on a Rampage

A large elephant named Meghabaran has broken free of his restraining chains and chases his frightened handlers up into the branches of a tree while his mahouts try to subdue him with a goad and swirling fireworks. In the middle distance tiny figures of riders on swaybacked horses are seen galloping to the hunt accompanied by runners, while on the crest of a nearby hillock, a nobleman holds court beneath a canopy. Behind the hillock emerges a procession led by a tame elephant and in the farthest distance figures are seen climbing up the path of a steep hill toward what appears to be the indomitable Kishangarh fortress built by Maharaja Roop Singh, whose name is inscribed on the verso of the painting.

The painting is remarkable for its panoramic composition incorporating several different scenes within a receding perspective, a convention that had its origins in earlier Mughal prototypes. The elephant, with his elongated body bedecked with bells and his face decorated with henna, is boldly executed in the distinctive, exaggerated Kishangarh style favored throughout the 18th and 19th Centuries. His powerful, robust form is deftly juxtaposed with the miniscule, delicately rendered figures in the background. As Stuart Cary Welch remarks, "... at Kishangarh, the most striking representations tend to be the mysterious and unique ones," S. C. Welch, Indian Drawings and Painted Sketches, New York, 1976, p. 118.