Painting picture courtesy Christie's Auction House Sometimes, a painting begins to ask more questions than it answers. A late eighteenth-century painting, attributed to the Mandi school and catalogued as showing Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra with a courtier, has intrigued me for some time. At first glance, the identification appears straightforward enough. Two men sit opposite each other, smoking hookahs, while attendants stand behind them holding fly-whisks. One figure is dressed in red, the other in white. The scene is informal, almost intimate, and yet unmistakably courtly. But the more I looked at the painting, the less convinced I became that the red-clad figure was Sansar Chand. The reason came from looking at other portraits. Among the surviving paintings associated with the Mandi court are several portraits of Raja Surma Sen, who ruled Mandi from 1781 until his death in 1788. One such portrait shows him seated smoking a hookah, attended by a fly-whisk bearer. Another depicts ...
The year was 1808. The place, Jammu. Raja Jaid Singh was placed on the throne of Jammu to be its king, supported by the presence of Mian Mota Singh, the all-powerful kingmaker of Jammu. In this period of madness in the province of Jammu, one hoped that Jammu would witness a semblance of balance and stability being created. Jammu had been in a free fall following the death of Raja Brijraj Dev. Sampuran Singh, the successor, succumbed to smallpox, leading to the situation that a new successor had to be found desperately. In the scramble, the name of Jaid Singh came forward, and with Mian Mota Singh’s support, Jaid Singh ascended the throne. Raja Brijraj Dev of Jammu ( painting with San Diego Museum of Art) Contributing to the constant madness in Jammu were the Khalsa forces who would raid Jammu and pillage it constantly, devoiding it of its wealth. The 1783 pillage of Jammu remained afresh in the minds of the people and the aristocrats alike - for two months, one witnessed not a single ...