HOWDAH YOU DO?

I love this picture. I bought it from a market stall in Spain and had it framed here. It's worth looking large to see the tiny brushwork, and to get the impression (though it hasn't come out as well as the real thing) of the gold on the howdah and around the blanket and the other trappings. I like the elephant's jaunty step, though not the prod of the mahout. And I particularly love the great big official stamp on the paper that the picture has been painted on. I have another painting in a similar style of a seduction scene in a garden pavilion with deer and tigers among the flowers. There are verses in Arabic, probably the poem it's illustrating, in that painting and on the back of the page. I contacted someone at the V&A to find out more about these, and she says that this sort of painting is mass produced for tourists, using old documents and pages torn out of old books. I haven't been to India, so I don't know about that, but I still think they're lovely and beautifully painted, whether old or new.

I've taken it at this angle to avoid reflections and flare from the glass.