This exhibition brings together a selection of 84 works, created in South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries, from the Edwin Binney III collection housed at the San Diego Museum of Art.

The exhibition is divided into two sections. The first, curated by Dr. Ladan Akbarnia, offers an in-depth look at the role of the elephant in Indian court painting. Court artists produced splendid paintings and studies of this majestic animal, massive and graceful, powerful and noble, many of which were admired in albums, and others conceived as stand-alone compositions or as designs for transfer to other media. The second, conceived by Dr. Sabiha al Khemir, studies court life through images related to power, hunting and love.

The San Diego Museum of Art has one of the finest and most comprehensive collections of South Asian painting outside of India, thanks to the bequest of Edwin Binney III (1925-1986), one of the great experts in the field of our time. The collection, consisting of nearly 1,500 paintings, is encyclopedic, and includes works from all the major schools from the 12th to the 19th centuries, including paintings made for the Mughal, Deccan, Rajastani and Pahari courts of India.