Bani Thani

In the small Rajput kingdom of Kishangarh in the mid-1700s, the ruler Sawant Singh was torn between his throne and his devotion to Krishna, and he was in love with a singer and poet at his court known as Bani Thani. His court painter, Nihal Chand, folded all of this into a new style. Around 1750 he gave his figures impossibly elongated eyes, arched brows, and a curving pointed chin, an ideal face rather than a real one, and painted the king and his beloved as the god Krishna and his consort Radha. This profile of Bani Thani became the signature image of the Kishangarh school. Sawant Singh eventually gave up his crown and retired with her to Vrindavan, the town linked to Krishna's life. Later admirers took to calling the portrait the Mona Lisa of India.