The Art of Miniature Painting in Udaipur

Patience is not one of my top virtues, which probably explains why I am in such awe of these miniature paintings.

The Maharaja on his galloping camel, a tiger running alongside, took a master painter somewhere between forty and fifty days to complete, coming back to it again and again to build up the scene. Freehand, in single-line brushwork, with touches of gold on the saddle and costume. And that painting is now seventy or eighty years old. Someone sat with it for over a month, it survived most of a century, and now it's here.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Sachin Kothari on my recent trip to Udaipur and we had a long conversation about his work to preserve and revive the dying art of miniature painting. In a world where speed is of the essence, this is a craft that requires patience and a slow, steady hand. Sachin was born in Udaipur and has made this his life's work. At his studio in the village of Sisarma, he trains artists free of charge and supports their families while they learn, and he has been collecting rare pieces for more than three decades.

The pieces I brought home are by several different painters, but our conversation stayed with me through every one I chose.

A tradition built on small things

Udaipur has been painting like this for centuries. The Mewar school, named for the old kingdom with Udaipur at its heart, took the miniature tradition that came in with the Mughal court and made it its own: brighter, bolder, full of hunting scenes, processions, gods and gardens. It reached its height in the seventeenth century under Jagat Singh I, and the painters working in the city today still draw on that same vocabulary of horses, tigers, palaces and flowers.

How they're made

Very little about the method has changed. Colours come from the natural world, ground from minerals, flowers and leaves. Brushes can be as fine as a few squirrel hairs. Once the painting is finished, the surface is burnished with a smooth stone until it takes on a soft sheen you only notice when the light catches it.

Some of the pieces I chose are worked almost entirely in ink, in tiny dots and lines. I was told this is harder than working in colour, and once you've looked closely you understand why. There's no colour to lean on, so every dot shows. The hookah smoker, an old man in a turban with a full white beard, took fifteen to twenty days. The ceremonial elephant, picked out in black dots with a little orange warming the trunk and ear, took about a week.

What I brought home

Twelve pieces in all, falling loosely into three groups.

The two Maharaja scenes are the old ones, both in the Udaipur Mewar style: the camel, and a hunting ride through hill country with a tiger, two deer and a leopard drinking at the water.

Then the ink pieces: the hookah man and the elephant.

And a set of flower studies on handmade paper, each one taking four or five days: blue irises touched with gold, blue lilies, nodding bellflowers, three magenta tulips, a spray of pink blossom and a crimson cockscomb painted roots and all. A bay horse in a black bridle, its coat built up in strokes you only see up close, sits alongside them, as does a pair of white cows on a lotus pond, painted on cloth.

And a few from further west

The collection also includes the Ottoman miniatures I brought back from Turkey last year. They're painted onto pages of antique Ottoman manuscripts and finished with gold leaf, so the old script is still visible on the reverse. Most have already found homes. The framed Ottoman Soldiers, signed and set in a mahogany and gold frame with forest green matting, is still here.

Living with them

Several of the Udaipur pieces are on genuinely old paper, so you'll see fold lines, small marks and the odd sign of age. I've left all of that alone. It's part of their story and frankly a large part of why I chose them. They come unframed, which I like, because a miniature changes completely depending on how you frame it. A wide mount gives a small painting room to breathe. A group of three or four floral studies hung close together works beautifully in a hallway or above a desk. Whatever you choose, frame them behind glass and keep them out of direct sun and away from damp and they'll outlast all of us.

When you look through the collection, do zoom in on the photos. It's the only way to really see the detail: every dot, every hair-fine line, the gold catching the light.

Each one is an original, so there will never be another exactly like it. Prices start from as little as AED 250.

See the collection

Steph