Late 19Th C Rajasthan Painted Bengal Tiger

A large late 19th/early 20th century Indian painting gouache on cotton cloth of a Bengal Tiger. Likely Rajasthan, North West India 188cm x 97cm

This life-size painting depicts an animal killed during a hunt. It was likely laid on the canvas and loosely sketched around. On top of this the artist has developed his own interpretation, capturing not just the physical form but also, in a sense, something of the animal's character.

Such a work is an example of the practice of the Mewari nobility of recording their hunting kills, as declarations of their skill and prowess. These paintings reiterate the important documentary function painting held before the advent of photography; in addition to their aesthetic value they served a practical purpose, as records of a particular event, scene or person.

It is unlikely that such works would have been hung permanently, but rather displayed in triumphant celebration and then stored for posterity. For another rare example of a cloth painting (in a more exaggerated form and style) of a tiger from Mewar, in the collection of Nahar Singh II of Devgarh and attributed to the mid-19th century painter Baijnath, see Milo Beach and Rawat Nahar Singh II, Rajasthani Painters: Bagta and Chokha, Master Artists at Devgarh, Zurich 2005, fig. 125.