Enlarge ImageChand Bibi of Bijapur Shooting with her Ladies
Central India, about 1750
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
© V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Women of the royal court were sometimes skilled in marksmanship. Here Chand Bibi of Bijapur, a sixteenth-century warrior queen who defended her realm from Mughal forces, is shown crouching behind a tree to surprise a deer. As well as being an accomplished soldier, Chand Bibi was also renowned as a skilled poet and musician.
This painting, made nearly 150 years after her death, indicates how her fame lived on long after her lifetime.