Explore the remarkable collection of Indian paintings and drawings of the artist Howard Hodgkin.
In this reinterpretation of a Mughal elephant subject, Bhao Singh (r.1658-1681) sits astride a royal elephant of great size. Its keepers walk in front with a spear and charkhi (firework attachment). The pale green ground found in Mughal portraiture becomes a strong dark green, and the elephant’s colouring is sharply contrasted between dark grey and the speckled pink of its trunk, ear and belly.
Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2nd February-22nd April 2012, Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin, Andrew Topsfield, ed. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2012), no. 79 on p. 188, illus. p. 189
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