The Rajpootnee Bride
Description:
Similar to the central figure of A Hindoo Female, the subject of The Rajpootnee Bride is initially striking on account her size; the female body fills the space of the image. The image is not a portrait of a specific person, but instead gives a generic portrayal of a Rajput bride. However, because the image illustrates a story that describes the bold character and tragic fate of one such bride, this Rajput princess is depicted in such a way as to display her sexual aggressiveness. She looks away so that the viewer can voyeuristically admire her sensuality: her breasts are highlighted by the deep neck of her dress, and a string of pearls draws the eye down to her chest.
Copyright:
Department of Special Collections, Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Primary Works:
The Oriental Annual, or Scenes in India (Vol. 2: London, 1835)
Accession Number:
AY 13 O7 1835
Printing Context
The Rajpootnee Bride appears in The Oriental Annual, or Scenes of India (1835), in the middle portion of the book. It illustrates a tragic love story, similar in theme to Romeo and Juliet, in which the daughter of a Rajput king marries the prince of a feuding clan.Associated Events
Tours of Wiliam and Thomas Daniell in IndiaAssociated Places
The East India Company (1600-1873)Associated Texts
This poem is on the opposite page from the image:Mark her slender form bent low,As the zephyrs lightly blow!Mark her robes like blossoms rare,Scattering fragrance on the air!Lotus-like her dewy feet<Treasures yield of nectar’d sweet;Lightly as her footsteps pass,Blushes all the bending grass;And rings of jewels, beauty’s powers,Freshen into living flowers.While brighter tints and rosier huesAll the smiling earth suffuse. (Broughton)
Subject
This image is found in Chapter XII of the Oriental Annual, which is titled, "The Rajpootni Bride." In this chapter, the author describes a feud between the Hara and Rahtore tribes. The Hara’s daughter was. . . celebrated for her beauty as for her energy of character and masculine understanding. Though subjected to the rigid discipline and jealous seclusion general among the daughters of Rajpootni princes, she had nevertheless partially emancipated herself from a control so repugnant to their impatient yet resolute temperament, and had not only become a partner in the counsels of her parent, but was consulted by him upon every pressing emergency.She had many suitors and was highly sought after. One day while hunting with her father she came across a lion that tried to attack her:
Instead of exhibiting any of the ordinary fears of her sex, she hastily shook her raven locks from her temples, and her head undauntedly raised, her lips compressed, and her eye flashing with a wild emery, she resolutely attacked the tiger with a dagger which she carried in her girdle, plunging it up to the very hilt in the animal’s body.The tiger, still alive, turned on the princess. Her father was too far off to help, but a hunter emerged from nowhere and chopped the head off the tiger.
Significance
Like The Hindoo Female, The Rajpootnee Bride provides a sexually available and sensual image of the exotic Other. Even though William Daniell does not mention his familiarity with this erotic Indian female, his sketches in 1792 of the voluptuous, bare breasted women on the façade of the temple Karli attest to his encounter with erotic Indian sculptures (Archer 144). The voluptuous, erotic women depicted on Indian temples most likely inspired the seductive qualities of the women in the Daniells' engravings.Function
The Oriental Annual, or Scenes in India constituted a combination of fictional and instructional manuals that were widely distributed and read; many book reviews regarding The Oriental Annual are found in periodicals of the time.Bibliography
Archer, Mildred. Early Views of India: The Picturesque Journeys of Thomas and William Daniell, 1786-1794: The Complete Aquatints. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1980. Print.Long Title
The Rajpootnee Bride, Drawn by W. Daniell, R. A. , Engraved by R. Woodman, Printed by J. YeatesFeatured in Exhibit:
Painter:
Engraver:
Image Date:
1835