Maharana Amar Singh II Riding a Jodhpur Horse

Stipple Master

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Amar Singh II, accompanied by four retainers, rides to the hunt on a prized blue-gray stallion, the chromatic and compositional focus of the painting. An inscription on the reverse tells us that the horse is from Jodhpur, a city famed for its steeds. Dramatically rendered portraits of prized horses and elephants were a well-developed genre of Mughal painting, and here the artist has combined this celebration of a horse and rider into another favored Mughal idiom, the royal hunt. The so-called Stipple Master’s elegant equestrian group contrasts with the understated landscape, in which lightly modulated forms echo the Persian-Mughal technique of nam qalam (half-tone painting), believed to have been inspired in part by European grisaille. Several of the finest artists in Amar Singh II’s atelier created colored drawings in this style, perhaps in reaction to the more traditional, brightly colored Rajput paintings.

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