Maharaja Medini Pal smoking a hookah

Gouache with gold, silver, and beetle-wing case on paper

The youthful Basohli ruler Medini Pal, who died aged 22 in 1736, sits smoking on a garden terrace. A young concubine waits upon him, tending his hookah and holding a quid of pan (betel leaf) which she will presently offer to the keen-eyed Raja. He wears the same Mughal jewelled pendant as his grandfather Kirpal Pal, depicted in the previous painting [LI118.37].

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