382 pages, hardback, 310 x 230 cm, 272 illustrations
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ISBN: 978 3 907077 03 0
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The Maharanas of Mewar in Rajasthan have long been regarded as pre-eminent among the Rajput chiefs of India and as dedicated guardians of social and cultural tradition. The Mewar school of painting, centred first at Chitor and later at Udaipur, was one of the most vigorous and prolific of all Indian court styles. It reveals an unrivalled continuity of development from the 16th century or earlier until as late as the 1940s.
In recent times, much of the huge production of Udaipur artists from 1614 to 1948 has become available for study in museum, library and private collections both at Udaipur and elsewhere in India, Europe, America and Australia. This book presents the most comprehensive account hitherto of the development of the Mewar school, from its obscure beginnings in the pre-Mughal Early Rajput style to the successive phases of manuscript illustration and court portraiture at Udaipur, which evolved in reaction first to Mughal stylistic influences and later to the exotic challenges of European art and photography.
The formative patronage of Maharanas Jagat Singh I (1628–52) and Amar Singh II (1698–1710) among others is discussed, as well as that of less artistically discerning rulers. The achievements of the leading court painters are also appraised, from Sahibdin in the 17th century to Chokha, Tara, Sivalal and others in the 19th to 20th centuries. Andrew Topsfield is Curator of Indian Art at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. He is the author of many publications on Rajasthani painting and related subjects. This monograph is a revised version of his Oxford University doctoral thesis.
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