Maharao Kishor Singh of Kota Celebrating a Religious Festival. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. 25 x 20.2 cm. Inscription on the top border of this painting, in a late hand in Devanagari characeters, which says: "The Prabodhini festival; 11th day of the bright half of (the month of) Karttika.
<p>Maharao crouches at right, looking very much like a priest of a temple - bare of upper body, clad only in a pristine white dhoti, head completely shaven, a long vertical tilaka on the forehead - with only his rich jewellery setting him apart from the priest at left. He pouring milk from a conch shell held reverently in both hands, over the sacred, <i>shaligrama</i> (ammonite)-like, symbolic <i>shila</i> (rock). On the gilstering marble floor, placed on pedestals or receptacles, lie objects used in the ritual: five earthen lamps in the four corners, flasks, <i>paan</i> boxes, Yamuna water in ewers covered with red cloth. In the very centre of painting, resting on a beautifully decorated <i>simhasana</i> (throne) is placed the sacred image of Krishna (in his Brijnathji form), sporting a peacock-feather crown, his two consorts flanikng him. And over it, made with sugar-cane stalks tied at the top, an arched canopy looms, following prescribed ritual.
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Kota, c. 1831. Rao Madho Singh Trust Museum
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Unknown artist<span style="display: none;">Unknown artist</span></div>
circa 1831 <div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1831-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1480,Q5727902</div>
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