On loan to The Met The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Maharaja Medini Pal Smoking a Hookah
India, Himchal Pradesh, Basohli
This poignant depiction of the youthful Medini Pal (r. 1722–36), who came to the throne at the age of six and died at twenty-two, belongs to a long tradition of ruler portraits in which they are shown at ease in the privacy of the inner court. The adolescent raja is seated with a young courtesan on a roof terrace; he holds a scented flower bud, evoking ascetic sensibility, and a hookah pipe, from which he is imbibing. To add to his sensual intoxication, his companion prepares a chewing quid of paan, a mild stimulant. In the tree are pairs of migratory Siberian white cranes, fabled for their fidelity, and in the upper register is a monsoonal sky with gold serpentine lightning. By introducing the symbolism of cranes and a stormy sky, the artist borrowed visual metaphors familiar from the genre of ragamala mood painting to evoke an amorous atmosphere.
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