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
Not on view
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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