In the Maharaja's Court

On display are some fifty portraits from the royal courts of the Indian Rajas and the Muslim and Mughal Sultanates who ruled north-western India from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. These works reflect the role of art as a means of conveying messages of supremacy, military power, knowledge, and wealth, as well as offering a glimpse into this complex world of the kingdoms and empires of this complex chapter in India's history. Painters who moved from court to court incorporated different traditions in their works, including local, Persian, and European techniques. In addition to portraits of rulers, this exhibition displays scenes from court life: royal meetings in ornate palaces, hunting expeditions, and portraits of the palace women. The paintings are accompanied by a small group of photographs of rulers from the nineteenth to early twentieth century, the modern equivalent of the royal portrait brought to India by the British.