“A Performing Horse from the Alwar State” by Mortimer Menpes, R. I.

A Performing Horse from the Alwar State

Mortimer Menpes

1903

Watercolor

Source: The Durbar, facing p. 128

“To help the colour scheme the legs and tail of this horse have been stained.”

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

This is one of Menpes’s dark, moody pictures that contrast dramatically with all his depictions of gold and bright colors in the Indian sun.

Related Material

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the University of California and the Internet Archive and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one. — George P. Landow]

“Even the performing horses from Alwar, which passed before us on their hind legs, almost waltzing as they walked, did not look at all out of place. They had been trained for a very practical purpose. In the Alwar group there were men on elephants, with old matchlock guns, and fourteen men on foot, some with silver spears and some with maces. The Alwar group was particularly interesting from the artistic standpoint warriors on elephants in old costumes, and everything out of date. They had worn these dresses all their lives, and one felt more in the Alwar State than in any other that this was the last time the men of the Orient would be seen by Westerners in these ancient garbs. Soon the old order would give place to new” (128).

Bibliography

Menpes, Mortimer. The Durbar. Text by Dorothy Menpes. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1903. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of California at Los Angeles Library. Web. 27 May 2017.

Last modified 27 May 2017