The Trumpet Boy

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This unusual portrait combines in the central figure a trumpet boy and a young shepherd. Folk traditions, not only in India, but all over the globe, assign to the shepherd a multifarious personality with musical talent, both as a piper and singer. A shepherd is seen as a person with a romantic vent of mind, with a taste for queer costumes and ornaments and a distinction of his own. In Christian and India's Vaishnava worlds, shepherds rose to divine heights and were often held in great veneration. This personality finds its supreme manifestation in Lord Krishna. The larger part of Krishna's life is a legend of a great shepherd.

Save that he is bare-footed, for a shepherd boy he is richly and colorfully clad. His dagger has a golden handle inlaid with stones .and is suspended on his gold belt, which again is studded with precious gems. He wears on his person a necklace, gold-bangles and earrings made of pearls. His buffalo too has on its neck a gold bell and chain.

The boy is absorbed in his musical reverie, with his body twisting in a manner that accentuates the curves of his trumpet.

The colors in this composition are perfectly balanced. His apron has been shaded with self patterns for subduing its own deep brown color. The vast expanse of his pink robe has been balanced by introducing the blue scarf on his head, the green on his legs, the golden belt in the middle and the dark colored vertical sheath of the dagger, suspending cross-wise across his waist. The landscape strewn with a few flowering ferns, and a casually cast sky is notional, in the true tradition of Mughal portraiture.

Descriptions by Dr. Daljeet.
Dr. Daljeet is Curator of the Gallery of Miniature Paintings, National Museum of India, New Delhi.