Portrait of Maharaja Ranjit Singh

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Describing Maharaja Ranjit Singh, with whom he had several encounters during his stay in the Punjab from 1829 to 1832, the Frenchman Jacquemont wrote: "He is a thin little man with an attractive face, though he has lost an eye from small pox which has otherwise disfigured him little. His right eye, which remains, is very large, his nose is fine and slightly turned up, his mouth thin, his teeth excellent. He wears slight moustaches which he twists incessantly with his finger, and a long thin beard which falls to his chest…." When Osborne, Lord Auckland's nephew, met Ranjit Singh, he found him sitting "cross-legged in a golden chair, dressed in simple white, wearing no ornaments but a single string of enormous pearls round the waist, and the celebrated Koh-y-Nur, the mountain of light, on his arm - the jewel rivalled, if nor surpassed, in brilliance by the glance of fire which every now and then shot from his single eye as it wandered restlessly round the circle…" Descriptions of this kind, and comments on the Great Maharaja's character, his strengths and his failings, some very critical, some most adulatory, most of them engaging, appear in every single account left by the stream of European visitors who came to these parts during the Maharaja's times. One reads about everything: his personal bravery, his love of horses, his shrewd silences, his insatiable curiosity, his devout nature, and his love of wine.

This simple, thinly colored portrait glosses over some details as usual, like the pock marks on his face, but is possessed of a certain warmth, some closeness of feeling. The Maharaja appears much like Jacquemont described him - thin of body, nose sharp and slightly turned up, thin mouth, large eyes, long thin beard - and is, for a man with his means and his power, relatively simply dressed. The short sleeved cloak which he wears over his angarakha one does not see often in other portraits, nor does one see that narrow little strip of cloth which is draped round the neck and falls over the shoulder. Instead of a full turban, he wears here a head-covering which falls at the back of the neck and trails on to the shoulder. Many of these details give to this painting an air of immediacy that one often misses in more formal, conventionalized works. The sarpesh on the forehead, the projecting sword end, the jewel on the right arm, one does not of course miss. What is of interest again is the curiously shaped, simple seat: neither the throne which we know as belonging to him, nor the European style chair with arms, it looks like a wickerwork moorha, made comfortable to sit on with large cushions placed on it.

References:

Archer, W.G. Paintings of the Sikhs. London, 1966.

Goswamy, B.N. Piety and Splendor (Exhibition Catalogue). National Museum, New Delhi, 2000.

Stronge, Susan, ed. The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms. London, 1999.