This dynamic work depicts an enraged elephant trampling upon a horse. The scene been produced with the shading techniques of nim-qalam (half pen) and the marbling technique known as kaghaz-i abri , or just abri. Here the artist has skillfully blocked off the areas of the elephant, rider, and horse, and created a vibrant marbled background, before finishing the work with fine black ink shading to create the details of the animals and mahout. Marbled paintings were produced in the Deccan in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This technique involved manipulating floating pigments on the surface of a liquid bath to form designs, which were then transferred to a sheet of paper by carefully laying it on top.
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Title:Elephant Trampling a Horse
Date:mid-17th century
Geography:Made in India, Deccan, Bijapur. Country of Origin India
Medium:Gold and opaque watercolor on marbled paper
Dimensions:Frame: 12 3/8 in. × 15 11/16 in. × 1 in. (31.5 × 39.8 × 2.5 cm) Image: 6 11/16 × 10 1/16 in. (17 × 25.5 cm)
Classification:Codices
Credit Line:Howard Hodgkin Collection, Purchase, Florence and Herbert Irving Acquisitions, Harris Brisbane Dick, and 2020 Benefit Funds; Howard S. and Nancy Marks, Lila Acheson Wallace, and Friends of Islamic Art Gifts; Louis V. Bell, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher, and Rogers Funds and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest; and funds from various donors, 2022
Accession Number:2022.202
Elephant Trampling a Horse
Inspired by Mughal manuscript illustrations of animals in combat, this lively scene depicts a mahout desperately attempting to control his enraged elephant, which is intent on trampling a subdued and frightened horse. The brilliant, comb-marbled background, composed of red earth, black, and bluish-gray indigo, enhances the drama. A positive cut-paper stencil was applied to the sheet before it was marbled, after which the drawing was rendered within the resulting void. Immediately in front of the mahout, a single downward stroke was made with a stylus in the combed design, conveying greater dynamism to the finished piece.
A mature artist skillfully drew the delicately shaded, black ink drawing in a variation of the nim qalam, or "half-pen," technique. The elephant's jeweled harness and chain, the horse's bridle, and the mahout's khawah (dagger) and hooked ankusha (elephant goad) are all rendered in gold ink. While the mahout's costume is decidedly Mughal, the delicate gilding of the harness recalls more elaborately jeweled metalwork observed on paintings of Atash Khan, the favorite elephant of Ibrahim 'Adil Shah II (reigned 1580–1627).
Several other marbled works featuring elephants are known, including one in the collection of the Princeton University Art Museum.[1] In that work, an elephant ridden by two mythical div mahouts is led in a procession by another div blowing a trumpet. The composite body is filled with a profusion of different animals, divs, and a bent, bearded male figure wearing a jama (robe) and turban typical of the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (1628–58). The garments of the man and divs are similar to the undulating jama worn by the mahout in the present composition, indicating that the same hand likely drew them both.
Jake Benson in [Haidar and Sardar 2015]
Footnotes:
1. Seyller John. "Deccani Elements in Early Pahari Painting." In Navina Haidar and Marika Sardar, eds. Sultans of the South: Arts of Indian Deccan Courts, 1323–1687. New York: The Metropolitan Museumof Art. [Papers presented at the symposium "The Art of India's Deccan Sultans," The Metropolitan Museumof Art, New York, October 24–26, 2008], 2011, p. 65, fig. 1. Other marbled drawings featuring elephants are Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology, University of Oxford (LI 118.49); Free Library of Philadelphia (M.55); Brooklyn Museum (2002.38); and Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (Ms. W.715).
Private Collection, Germany (by 1950s–1999); Sotheby's, London, 17 June 1999, lot 28; Howard Hodgkin, London (1999–d. 2017); Howard Hodgkin Indian Collection Trust, London (2017–2022; sold to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy," April 20–July 26, 2015.
The Travel Sale - India and the Far East, Modern and Contemporary South Asian Paintings. London, 1999. lot 28, pp. 19–20, ill. p. 20.
Sotheby's, New York. Antiquities from the Collection of the Late Christos G. Bastis. December 9, 1999. New York: Sotheby's, New York, 1999.
Topsfield, Andrew. "The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, February 2-–April 22, 2012." In Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2012. no. 41, pp. 90–91, 104–5, ill.
Guy, John, and Navina Haidar. Indian Skies : The Howard Hodgkin Collection of Indian Court Painting (Winter 2024). p. 23, ill. fig. 25.
Haidar, Navina, and Marika Sardar. "Opulence and Fantasy." In Sultans of Deccan India 1500–1700. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015. no. 78, p. 167, ill.
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