English: Maharao Kishor Singh of Kota Celebrating a Religious Festival. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. 25 x 20.2 cm. Inscription on the top border of this painting, in a late hand in Devanagari characeters, which says: "The Prabodhini festival; 11th day of the bright half of (the month of) Karttika.

Maharao crouches at right, looking very much like a priest of a temple - bare of upper body, clad only in a pristine white dhoti, head completely shaven, a long vertical tilaka on the forehead - with only his rich jewellery setting him apart from the priest at left. He pouring milk from a conch shell held reverently in both hands, over the sacred, shaligrama (ammonite)-like, symbolic shila (rock). On the gilstering marble floor, placed on pedestals or receptacles, lie objects used in the ritual: five earthen lamps in the four corners, flasks, paan boxes, Yamuna water in ewers covered with red cloth. In the very centre of painting, resting on a beautifully decorated simhasana (throne) is placed the sacred image of Krishna (in his Brijnathji form), sporting a peacock-feather crown, his two consorts flanikng him. And over it, made with sugar-cane stalks tied at the top, an arched canopy looms, following prescribed ritual.

Kota, c. 1831. Rao Madho Singh Trust Museum