Maharaja Bhupat Pal smoking a hookah

Gouache with gold and silver on paper.

Maharaja Bhupat Pal (r.1598-1635), the founder of Basohli, spent much of his career at the Mughal court, like other Rajput rulers of the time. Eventually he was murdered there in 1635 by a rival Hill Raja. He is said to have been a man of mighty physique, and in this powerful posthumous portrait he looms over the half-sized figure of his hookah-bearer.

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