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| Title | an enraged elephant charging its tormentors in a palace courtyard | |
| Collection | Artworld: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts | |
| Date | 1725-1750 CE | |
| Description | This image, primarily an initial sketch, is rendered in charcoal. The only completed part is the elephant's head, finished in black and brown ink with white highlights. Attendants, one trying to deter the beast with firecrackers, run for cover, some to each side, as the proportionally tiny mahout appears to have lost control. An outline of the Maharaja watching can be seen on the top right balcony. The building is merely ruled in and three lines running diagonally down from the Maharaja's balcony denote a barrier which is likely ro be a dividing mound between the opposing elephants. | |
| Description Source | Information taken from Robert Skelton in Steven Hooper (ed.), 1997 & Margaret A Willey, 1995 (Revised 2000) | |
| Cultural Context | Indian | |
| Id Number Current Accession | 766 | |
| Location Creation Site | Bharat, Rajasthan, Khota | |
| Location Current Repository | Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts | |
| Subject | visual work, painting, miniature | |
| Measurements | 575 x 498 x 1 mm | |
| Context | The drawing is evidently the preliminary sketch for a painting and many only represent a quarter of the original composition, in which one would also expect to find the opposing beast.. The elephant runs, out of control of its mahout, towards a corner of the courtyard where attendants on the surrounding plinth run for shelter as one of them holds a fire-cracker to deter the animal. Above them, in a corner pavilion, the Maharao (outlined only in charcoal) sits at a balcony. Other attendants are escaping into the entrance arch of the court. As is often the case with such drawings, emphasis is given to the head of the elephant, while the human figures are very freely outlined. AS with no. 192, the work was in Arts Council exhibition chosen by Sir Howard Hodgkin and published in the catalogue (Hodgkin and McInerney, 1983: pl. 26). Another drawing in the exhibition shows two elephants (ibid., pl. 27) and is perhaps closest in style to the present one among published works of the school. It also shows a young Maharao, perhaps Durjan Sal (r. 1724 - 56), but he cannot yet be firmly identified. |
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| Context Source | Robert Skelton. In: Steven Hooper (ed.). 1997. Catalogue to the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection. University of East Anglia. | |
| Rights | Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA, Norwich, 2002. All Rights reserved | |
| Work Type | painting | |