Ala-uddin and Mahima Hunting | Restored Mughal Wall Art

A scene from the Hamir Hath, the Rajasthani ballad of the proud, doomed defense of Ranthambore by the Rajput hero Hamir against Sultan Alauddin Khalji's siege of 1301. Here the sultan and his beloved Mahima are paused mid-hunt when a great orange tiger interrupts the scene — Alauddin rises to meet it, sword raised; attendants on horseback close in from the right; antelope scatter across the grass-and-gold landscape.

Painted in the Punjab Hills around 1790, the folio belongs to the Pahari tradition — the school of Rajput court painting that flourished in the foothill kingdoms long after the central Mughal workshops had dispersed. The composition is wide and ceremonial, the figures held against a lush mountain landscape in deep greens and ochres.

Pahari painters of this generation absorbed Mughal precision and bent it to local epic — saints, hunters, lovers from Rajasthani and Hindu sources rather than imperial portraiture. The result is history dressed as legend, legend dressed as art.

Restored from the museum archives by aurahliving.com.

Landscape orientation — 20×16 in frame.