Marbled Elephant
In the work at top, the body of the trotting elephant and the human figures (the two riders and a third, seen running ahead) were made using the marbling technique known as abri (cloudlike), in which pigments floating on the surface of a liquid bath are manipulated to form designs that are then carefully transferred to a sheet of paper. Such paintings are well known from the Deccan region in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The dynamic scene in the work below, which depicts an enraged elephant trampling a horse, was made using abri along with the shading technique of nim-qalam (half-pen). After blocking out areas for the elephant, rider, and horse, the artist created the marbled background before rendering the details of the animals and mahout (keeper) in fine black ink.
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