Portrait of Thakur Bhoj Raj Singh
1874
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1874
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Portrait of Thakur Bhoj Raj Singh is a 1874 paint by Gopal, a Patna School of Painting work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
The painting shows a man sitting in a chair, holding a huqqa. He's dressed in traditional clothes. The artist paid attention to the details of his outfit and the chair. The man in the painting is Thakur Bhoj Raj Singh, a title given to the son of a Rajput ruler. We don't know much about him, though. To learn more about this style of painting, look up the technique of sfumato.
A Company Painting from 1874 by Gopal depicts Thakur Bhoj Raj Singh seated on a European-style chair while holding the mouthpiece of a huqqa. The work, created in Agra, includes price labels marked £4 and was later acquired by the India Museum before being transferred to the South Kensington Museum in 1879. The portrait reflects the fusion of traditional Indian artistic methods with European conventions, typical of Company paintings produced for British patrons. Biographical details of the sitter remain untraced.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Gopal didn’t just paint portraits—he seemed to know his sitters inside out before picking up a brush.
See the richer artist page
