Raja Udai Singh of Chamba with a Courier and Attendants

The portly raja wears the distinctive robes of the hills, a tailored white woolen coat known locally as a chola. Before him stands a courtier offering the paan box (for betel leaves), and behind him are two attendants, one holding his sword and waving a peacock-feather fan and the other proffering the hookah base from which the raja smokes, all signifiers of royal rank. The sharply defined profile, with a large almond-shaped eye disconcertingly gazing upward, is an idiosyncrasy of the Chamba style, but the highly individualized characterization—along with comparison to a portrait of Udai Singh of Chamba (r. 1690–1720) now in the National Museum, New Delhi—suggests that this portrait shows the same ruler in his advanced years.