This is the third painting of the great Rajasthani Mewari artist Chokha to enter the Museum's collection. Each of the three is quite different in conception and overall appearance, but this rare night scene is certainly the finest. At the bottom left, a group of guards are sleeping on either side of a palace door. Immediately above them, a lady dressed in a diaphanous gown lies on a bed flanked by two attendants. Above, a maid peers down from a domed chattri at a nobleman who is climbing a rope, which presumably has been lowered to facilitate a tryst with his mistress.

Chokha balanced the weight of the palace facade at the left by placing the nobleman's richly caparisoned horse and its attendant, as well as a lush green forest, at the right. He gave the painting a sense of drama by juxtaposing the quietude of the sleeping cows in the middle ground and the walled town in the distance with brightly colored protagonists and a roiling band of black thunderclouds. Although the story has not yet been identified, this tale must once have been a popular one, as other paintings of the same subject are known.

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