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Maharaja Vijai Singh Bathes with a Woman of the Court at Nagaur Palace

India, Rajasthan, Jodhpur

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 693

Maharaja Vijai Singh of Jodhpur (r. 1752–93) stands bare-chested in an octagonal bathing pool along with eighteen women of the zenana (harem). The pool is enclosed by a white marble openwork (jali) balustrade, and the water is painted silver (now darkened with oxidization). A small marble pavilion with a sweeping roofline and richly patterned rug mark his royal seat. Singh wears a green lungi (skirt cloth) with a golden cummerbund and a dramatically large green turban, as was the Jodhpur fashion. He holds a metal syringe with which he playfully douses the women with water, recalling the annual Holi spring festival.

Maharaja Vijai Singh Bathes with a Woman of the Court at Nagaur Palace, Opaque watercolor with gold and silver on paper, India, Rajasthan, Jodhpur

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Photo © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford