Ladies of the Court Hunting

Two ladies of the court, each wide-eyed and with finely modeled features, ride luxuriously caparisoned horses as they pursue a herd of blackbuck across a hilly landscape. They appear to be riding at full gallop, as the horses are straining under the reins. In a remarkable feat of horsemanship, the lady in yellow has just snared a blackbuck with her bow, but whether this episode was intended as a simple hunting scene or as a metaphor for a lover ensnaring the object of her desire remains unknown. The decorative frieze of trees and the pink-tipped hillocks at left and right are signature features of the Bikaner painting style of the later eighteenth century, as are the lotus pond in the foreground and the dark blue sky above, the latter suggestive of an evening hunt.