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BAZ BAHADUR AND RUPMATI HUNTING AT NIGHT
LATE MUGHAL STYLE AT DELHI, MID-18TH CENTURY
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper.
Image: 7 3/4 x 10 1/8 in. (18 x 25.9 cm);
Folio: 8 1/4 x 10 3/4 in. (21.3 x 25.7 cm)

$50,000 - 70,000
The painting evokes one of the great love tragedies of Northern India, that of the mid-
16th-century Muslim Sultan Baz Bahadur and his Hindu shepherdess Queen Rupmati.
The last independent ruler of Malwa, in present-day Madhya Pradesh, Baz Bahadur was
a handsome and talented musician and lyricist. One day out hunting he was captivated
by a beautiful melody rising over the trees and pursued it to its source in Rupmati, the
two falling instantly in love. Overcoming familial objection, their romance blazed for a
few short years – said to distract him from prudent attention to statecraft, and ended
tragically, on the battlefield, under the sword of Akbar’s Mughal general Adham Khan.
To avoid capture and risk her honor, Rupmati took her own life with poison. Their story
lives on till this day as a key element in the regional identity and cultural consciousness of
Madhya Pradesh, immortalized in paintings such as the present lot, which depicts them
lost in each other, doing what they loved.

Ehnbom eloquently describes the painting thus:

“Here the lovers are shown hunting at night, seemingly more interested in each other
than in any quarry. A dark ground gives way to a somber forest and a night sky of deep
blue. In the center, the lovers glow as if illuminated by an inner light. A tree directly behind
them reflects their effulgence and provides a frame of light-green leaves. The king’s robe
is a sunny yellow, while Rupmati’s garment is of opalescent white. She is heavily jeweled.
The lightly tinted horses spot rich tack. They rear up, but so gently that the lovers are not
disturbed and continue to stare into each other’s eyes.”
(The Ehrenfeld Collection, 1985, p.76)

On a fascinating matter of genre studies in Indian painting, Ehnbom also points out that
as imperial Mughal power waned – and morale in Delhi was hit especially hard after the
invasion of the Persian king Nadir Shah in 1739 – scenes of idealized lovers and wistful
recreations of past imperial glories became increasingly popular, “as if painting could
provide relief from grim political reality”.

Published
Daniel J. Ehnbom, Indian Miniatures: The Ehrenfeld Collection, New York, 1985, p.76-7,
no.30.
Kapoor Galleries, A Sterling Collection of Indian & Himalayan Art, New York, 2011, no.15.

Exhibited
Indian Miniatures from the Ehrenfeld Collection, American Federation of Arts, circulated
September 1985-November 1987.

Provenance
The Ehrenfeld Collection, California
Sotheby’s, New York, 6 October 1990, lot 19
Carlton Rochell Asian Art, New York
The Sterling Collection, USA, 2011

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