A portrait of Jam Ranmalji (r.1820-52), with Bhavsar Mona and Khavas Demar Nawanagar, Kathiawar, Gujarat, circa 1840

gouache with gold on paper, inscriptions identifying figures on painted surface, red border

This bold portrait depicts Jam Ranmalji, the ruler of the Kathiawar region of Gujarat between 1820 and 1852, with two courtiers. The Jams, a Jadeja Rajput clan, had ruled the region since the late medieval period. A related portrait of the Jam Ranmalji’s son Jam Vibhaji dated 1864 was in the James Ivory Collection (see Losty 2010, no.15). It is worth noting that the two works are of almost identical size, albeit of different orientations, possibly indicating a standard size for such portraits in the nineteenth century. The subject of the present portrait was the adoptive grandfather of Ranjitsinghi, the famous cricketer who played for Cambridge, Sussex and England in the 1890s.