Brought directly from India, and more specifically from Rajasthan, these elephants are typical of Indian craftsmanship: entirely made of wood and hand-painted, they are luxuriously adorned.

Initially, the sole purpose of miniature painting was to illustrate Buddhist manuscripts. In more recent times, miniatures have gone beyond the sole vocation of illustrating religious manuscripts, and now bear witness to Indian literature in general, adopting a variety of media such as sculpture. The beauty of this art lies in its small-scale composition, yet its sophisticated sense of detail in motifs and colors. Such is the richness of their contents that they bear witness to the social and cultural life of the time. The choice and elaboration of colors are essential to the creation of a miniature. To obtain yellow or orange, you need to work with natural ingredients such as saffron, minium, sulfur or henna bark.

Here, on these statuettes of elephants, we discover hunting scenes on the carpet trimmings. Kings set out to conquer terrible animals such as tigers and lions. In relative safety on the backs of elephants or horses, the Maharajas considered these extremely dangerous hunts to be a leisure sport.