An Elephant and rider hunting rhinoceros, Rajasthan, Kotah, Late 17th Century

Opaque watercolour and gold on cloth

fragment, losses and rubbing, as viewed
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This is a fragment of a powerful and intense painting of an elephant scene, also attributed by Cary Welch to the "Kotah Master" and one of several monumental and dynamic works involving elephants and hunts executed at Kotah in the late 17th and early 18th century. For a full discussion of related works and their artists see footnote to lot 28. The present work is unusual among this group for being painted on cloth.

The particular scene on the present work shows an elephant involved in hunting rhinoceros, and in this it relates in subject matter to the well-known Ram Singh of Kota Pursuing a Rhinoceros (Welch 1997, fig.1; Welch 1985, p. 359, no. 242; Beach 1974, pls.LXVII-LXVIII, fig.71-72,; Montgomery 1960, no.36). In both pictures the elephant, as well as the rider, is involved in the central action of the hunt. In Ram Singh of Kota Pursuing a Rhinoceros the elephant is lassoing the rhinoceros with its trunk, holding it back while Ram Singh spears it. In the present work the elephant is goring the side of the rhinoceros with its tusks while the rider (presumably a prince or nobleman) stabs down with a lance. Four arrow-tails sticking out of the rhino's flank indicate that it had been wounded by an archer before the elephant attacked - showing what a determined effort had been made to bring down the mighty beast.

The energy and effort involved in the actual physical action of the hunt is powerfully conveyed by the artist through the dramatic depiction of the movement, weight and bulk of the elephant, with its pumping hind legs powering it forward, the front  legs folded as it lands its weight on the rhino's back, and the curling trunk acting as the centre of this spiral of energy. The compositonal mastery is enhanced by the use of tightly spaced curling lines of black pigment over the greys of the elephant and rhino's hides; the curling lines emphasising the bulk and mass of the elephant and adding a graphic intensity to the work.