Equestrian Portrait of a Noble

Bakhta

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rajput paintings are often jewel-like in their minute details and labored finish. A drawing such as this one shows how swift, expressive, and varied the Rajput artist's line could be, whether in suggesting the bulge of a muscular forearm, the taut belly of a horse, or the wiry bristle of a Rajput mustache. Equestrian portraits were a common, formal, and often stiff means of honoring a nobleman or warrior. This portrait, however, appears to be a caricature of its subject, whose mustache and beard curl back on his face with scratchy pomposity and whose horse seems to bend and whinny under his prodigious weight. Deogarh was a tikhana, or a feudatory state, of Mewar, situated to the north.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art