Publications - Mehrangarh Museum Trust

Mehrangarh Museum Trust has a collection of exclusive publications related to art, culture, history and traditions. You can visit our Library situated at the Fort and can have a look at our books.

Our publications are available online as well for purchase www.mehrangarhmuseumshop.com

The Maharaja of Jodhpur’s Guns by Robert Elgood (2020)

The Maharaja of Jodhpur’s Guns is the first book to be written specifically on historic Indian firearms. With more than 350 unique images of guns and Rajput paintings from private collections showing their use, this book offers scholars and collectors the opportunity to see the superb Jodhpur collection and to learn about Rajput traditions relating to hunting and war.

Peacock in the Desert : The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India by Karni Jasol (2018)

Peacock in the Desert traces the evolution of royal identity in the kingdom of Marwar-Jodhpur in southwestern Rajasthan from the 17th century to the establishment of independence after 1947, presenting the area as a microcosm of India’s extraordinarily vibrant culture. An international team of contributors has contextualized these regional narratives in relation to external–and even global–forces. The book thus offers a new perspective on the acquisition and commissioning of objects through patronage, diplomacy, matrimonial alliances, trade, and conquest. It sheds fresh light on the influential role of women at the royal courts and examines monarchies as lenses onto cross-cultural relationships, the unrecognized roles of groups marginalized in earlier accounts, cultural heterodoxy, and large-scale multicultural exchange. Exploring these webs of connection, Peacock in the Desert makes a transformative contribution to scholarship. Its multidisciplinary approach to artistic and cultural exchange offers pathbreaking insights, adding crucial chapters to the story of India’s royal visual splendor.

Rajput Arms and Armour: Volume I and II by Robert Elgood (2017)

A spectacular new two-volume book that offers a window into the vivid history and martial culture of the royal Rathore rulers of Jodhpur. The fascinating text is complemented by photographs of more than 400 arms in the Mehrangarh Fort collections, dazzling with designs crafted in gold, silver, jewels, ivory, jade, enamel, and watered steel.

Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur by Debra Diamond (2016)

‘Garden and Cosmos’ are metaphors for two cultural and aesthetic impulses at the Marwar court of north western India between the seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. Fifty-four rediscovered paintings (most previously unpublished) from the royal collection of the Rathore dynasty of Marwar reveal the unique contribution of the Jodhpur – Marwar school of painting to the history of Indian art. Introductory essays situate the paintings in the geographic, cultural and historical landscape of north India and are interwoven with colour photographs of the Mehrangarh and Ahhichatragarh Forts in which the paintings were produced and viewed.The authors present scholarship that bears broadly on north Indian court art by examining how Marwar artists created images for subjects to court painting and how they represented definitive spaces by closely observing architecture or citing images from maps and town plans. The metaphysics and later political history of the order that originated hatha yoga are a second focus of the book. An additional essay is devoted to the Jodhpur atelier and its production of manuscripts. A reference section includes reviews of relevant scholarship and related paintings translations of inscriptions on the paintings.

Durbar: Royal Textiles of Jodhpur by Rahul Jain (2012)

A beautifully illustrated and carefully researched catalogue of the extraordinary textile collections of the Mehrangarh Fort Museum.

Marwar Painting: A History of the Jodhpur Style by Rosemary Crill (2001)

Artists trained at the court of the Mughal emperors brought sophisticated concepts of portraiture and composition to Jodhpur in the 17th and 18th centuries, and these ideas were combined with distinctive local styles and bold colours to form a uniquely lively school of painting. This book is the first to show a wide range of these vibrant paintings in full colour and to provide a complete survey of the development of this little known school of Rajasthani painting.

Drawn largely from the royal collection in Jodhpur itself, the paintings discussed in the book also include examples from public and private collections in India, the USA and Great Britain, most of which have never before been published. Beautifully illustrated and thoroughly researched, this important work will be essential for all lovers of Indian painting.