An Old Man

ca. 1730

Indian portrait paintings often depict their subjects standing in profile against a plain backdrop. In this delicate portrait an unidentified older man wears relatively humble clothing: he lacks jewelry, a sword, or the decorative sash usually sported by courtiers of the period. The emphasis of the painting seems to be on the sensitive rendering of his wrinkled face and on the unusual purple sack that he carries over one shoulder. It is likely that this man was an honored artist or scholar, someone worth celebrating in a courtly portrait but not a member of the aristocracy.