Why a desert town painted itself
The caravan towns: in the eighteenth century these towns sat on trade routes between the Gujarat ports and the north, and the Shekhawat thakurs offered merchants protection and low taxes.
The great move: when trade shifted to the British ports in the nineteenth century, the merchants followed it to Calcutta and Bombay, and many grew into India's great business houses.
- Who paid
- Marwari merchant families
- Money from
- Caravan trade, then Calcutta and Bombay
- Painting peak
- Roughly 1830 to 1930
- What they painted
- Havelis, temples, wells, chhatris, forts
- Money sent home: the families lived far away but built at home: havelis, temples, wells and chhatris, the domed cenotaphs, all painted inside and out.
- Competition on the street: every haveli tried to outdo the one across the lane, which is why some towns are painted almost wall to wall.
- An accidental museum: nobody planned a gallery. It grew one family's pride at a time, and today it is one of the largest groups of painted buildings anywhere.
- The sad half: most families never came back to live, so many walls fade behind locked gates. Our Shekhawati guide tells the wider story of the region.
How a Shekhawati fresco was made
Wet on wet: for true fresco the mason laid fine lime plaster one section at a time, and the painter worked fast while it was still damp, so the colour bonded into the wall.
The polish: the surface was then beaten and burnished until it gleamed. Rajasthani masons call this polished lime finish araish, and it is why the oldest walls still shine.
- Wet fresco
- Pigment painted into fresh lime plaster
- Local name
- Araish, polished lime work
- Later method
- Painting on dry plaster
- Early colours
- Ochres, lamp black, indigo, copper green
- Earth and plant colours: red and yellow ochre, lamp black, indigo, white lime and green from copper gave the early walls their warm, muted palette.
- Dry plaster later: painting on dry plaster, a secco method, was quicker and allowed finer detail, so it spread as demand grew in the nineteenth century.
- Chemical colours arrive: from the late nineteenth century painters used bright imported pigments. Sharp blues, magentas and acid greens usually mark a later wall.
- The painters: they are usually remembered as chiteras, and many masons painted too. Few signed their work, though a name and a date sometimes hide in a corner.
- Guilds on the move: painting families travelled from town to town for commissions, which is why a style you see in Mandawa reappears in Fatehpur or Churu.
Where the paintings hide on a haveli
The facade and the gateway
Bands of colour: facades carry long horizontal bands of figures, often processions, trains or horsemen, framed by painted borders.
- Ganesh above the door: almost every gateway has Ganesh over the arch, the god of beginnings who guards each threshold.
- Look straight up: the ceiling of the gateway passage is often the best preserved panel in the house, sheltered from sun and rain.
Under the eaves and on the brackets
- The eave panels: a narrow strip under the projecting roof often holds the most delicate miniatures, kept bright by the shade.
- Brackets and arches: carved stone brackets were painted too. Binoculars show tiny birds, flowers and faces most people walk past.
The courtyards and the baithak
The outer court: the men's courtyard, where business was done, carries the grandest scenes to impress clients.
- The baithak: the formal sitting room may have mirror work, gold paint and a ceiling of painted medallions.
- The inner court: the women's courtyard, behind a second door, is often less faded, because deep verandas kept off the sun.
Chhatris, wells and temples
- Chhatri ceilings: the domes of merchant cenotaphs were painted inside with gods, family portraits and scenes of the life left behind.
- Wells and step-tanks: pavilions over wells and the gates of reservoirs carry paintings too, a gift to the whole town rather than one family.
Reading the walls as a timeline
Krishna everywhere: the most loved subject is Krishna, as a child stealing butter, dancing with the gopis, the cowherd girls, or lifting Mount Govardhan.
The epics: scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata run in long strips, with Rama, Sita, Hanuman and the battle at Lanka.
- Earliest themes
- Krishna, Rama, gods and processions
- Middle period
- Folk heroes, hunts, lovers, local life
- From about the 1860s
- Europeans, trains, cars, aeroplanes
- Later 1920s
- Photographic portraits, brighter colours
- Dhola and Maru: the desert's great lovers ride a single camel across many walls, fleeing with her family in pursuit.
- Royal show: elephants, horse processions, hunting scenes and durbars copied the courts of Jaipur and Bikaner, since the merchants admired the nobility they served.
- Folk heroes: look for the outlaw cousins Dungji and Jawarji, remembered locally as rebels against the British in the 1840s.
- The new world: as the families travelled, painters showed what they saw or what came home in prints: steam trains, motorcars, bicycles, gramophones, top hats and early aeroplanes.
- Kings and leaders: a few later walls show the British royal family or Indian leaders. Mandawa's Murmuria haveli has Nehru on horseback and King George V.
- Painters' jokes: an elephant or a horse made up of the bodies of many women was a favourite puzzle. Children love finding them.
Five clues for dating a painted wall
The palette: soft ochres, black and indigo on polished lime point to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Electric blues and pinks point to the very late nineteenth century or later.
The surface: a glassy, burnished finish suggests true fresco. A matt surface, where paint sits on top and flakes, suggests dry plaster and a later date.
- Vikram Samvat
- About 57 years ahead of the Western year
- Glossy and soft
- Usually earlier, true fresco
- Matt and bright
- Usually later, dry plaster
- Machines
- A later wall, almost always
- The subject: gods and courtly processions come early. Any machine, from a train to a gramophone, puts the wall after the railways reached the merchants' world.
- The drawing: later painters copied photographs and prints, so faces gain shading and perspective. Early figures are flatter, in profile, like miniatures.
- Dates on the wall: some havelis carry a painted date in the Vikram Samvat calendar, which runs about 57 years ahead of the Western one. Your guide can convert it.
The best towns for frescoes
Nawalgarh, the place to begin
Two museums, two philosophies: the Dr Ramnath A Podar Haveli Museum of 1902 was retouched and is bright, while the Morarka Haveli was cleaned but never repainted.
- Our order: see the Morarka first, then the Podar, and argue about it over lunch. Guests rarely agree which approach is right.
- The Aath Haveli: a group of eight mansions where you can watch neighbours compete, wall by wall.
Mandawa, the easiest base
Compact and walkable: the Chokhani and Goenka double havelis, the Murmuria haveli and rooms glittering with gold paint are all close together.
- Sleep inside the story: Castle Mandawa occupies the thakurs' fort, and the havelis begin at its gate.
- Go at eight: walk before the day visitors from Jaipur and Delhi arrive.
Fatehpur, the oldest and most moving
Early walls: the Kaimkhani town has some of the region's earliest and finest painting.
- A lesson in restoration: the haveli bought by the French artist Nadine Le Prince was restored by cleaning off soot rather than painting over it.
- Fading streets: much of the town stands empty, which makes it both beautiful and sobering.
Ramgarh and Mahansar, for ceilings and gold
- Ramgarh: founded by the Poddars, with a group of painted chhatris whose ceilings are among the best preserved paintings in Shekhawati.
- Mahansar: the Sone Chandi ki Haveli has rooms worked in gold and silver. We pair the two in one afternoon.
Churu, Alsisar and the quiet towns
Churu: the painted Kanhaiya Lal Bagla haveli and the Surana haveli of many windows, on the edge of the dunes. See our Churu guide.
- Alsisar: unrestored havelis around a fort hotel, and almost no visitors. Our Alsisar page explains why we send people here.
- Dundlod, Mukundgarh, Lakshmangarh and Bissau: each has a fort and painted lanes, an hour or less from the next.
A painted wall up close
Find the centre: most panels have a main figure, often a god, framed by an arch, with smaller scenes arranged around it like a page of a manuscript.
- Read the border: floral borders and rows of birds tell you which workshop painted the wall, since each family had its own patterns.
- Check the corners: painters hid their best jokes and everyday life in the corners: a barber, a woman churning butter, a man smoking a hookah.
- Notice the damage: the lowest metre of a wall is usually lost to rising damp, cattle and passing carts. The higher you look, the more you see.
Saving the walls, and what threatens them
Abandonment: most damage comes from empty houses. Roofs leak, water runs down the walls, and the lime softens and falls.
Rising damp: salts climb from the ground and push the plaster away from the wall, which is why lower panels crumble first.
- Main threat
- Empty houses and slow neglect
- Worst repairs
- Cement and bright enamel paint
- Theft
- Carved doors and panels sold to dealers
- What helps
- Visitors, tips and family interest
- Soot and whitewash: cooking fires blackened many rooms, and some owners whitewashed old paintings they considered out of fashion.
- Bad repairs: cement patches trap moisture, and glossy enamel paint over old work can never be removed without destroying it.
- Stolen pieces: carved doors, brackets and painted panels are stripped from empty havelis and sold. Please never buy them from antique dealers.
- The hopeful side: some families have restored their houses as museums or hotels, and local craftsmen still know lime work. Interest from visitors helps persuade owners that the walls are worth saving.
How we look at a wall with guests
Start in the street: look at the whole facade from across the lane before going in. The layout tells you how rich the family was and what they wanted to show.
Follow the order of the house: platform, gate, outer court, baithak, inner court, roof. The paintings change in mood as you move inward.
- Best light
- Two hours after sunrise, two before sunset
- Allow
- Half a day per town
- Bring
- Torch, binoculars, small notes, scarf
- Avoid
- Flash, touching walls, antique dealers
- Use a torch: a small torch held at a low angle shows brushwork and outlines in dark gateway ceilings. Never use flash on the paintings.
- Bring binoculars: the eave panels and upper bands are too high for the naked eye, and binoculars bring them within reach.
- Touch nothing: oil from fingers stains lime, and the edges of flaking paint break easily.
- Mind the stairs: in unrestored havelis, stairs and roofs can be unsafe. Our guides know which houses to enter and which to admire from the courtyard.
- Ask before photographs of people: many havelis are homes. Grandmothers on the doorstep and women in the inner court should always be asked first.
Three days on the fresco trail
Day one: Nawalgarh
Morning: the Morarka Haveli, then the Podar Haveli Museum, with time to compare them.
- Afternoon: rest, then a lane walk through the Aath Haveli and the merchants' quarter in the late light.
- Evening: dinner on a haveli roof, with the call of peacocks from the fields.
Day two: Mandawa and Fatehpur
Morning: Mandawa's double havelis and gold rooms at eight, before the day-trippers.
- Afternoon: Fatehpur, with the Le Prince haveli and the quieter lanes beyond it.
- Sunset: the dunes outside Mandawa, with chai from a flask.
Day three: Ramgarh, Mahansar and Churu
Morning: the painted chhatris of Ramgarh, with the ceilings still in soft light.
- Midday: the gold and silver room at Mahansar.
- Afternoon: Churu's havelis and the Sethani ka Johara reservoir, or continue to Tal Chhapar for blackbuck at dawn.
Where to stay among the paintings
Castle Mandawa: the thakurs' fort of 1755, the region's best-known heritage hotel and the easiest base for Mandawa, Nawalgarh and Fatehpur.
Roop Niwas Kothi, Nawalgarh: a family country house with Marwari horses, so you can ride out at dawn before a fresco walk.
- Alsisar Mahal: a fort hotel in a quiet town, for travellers who want empty lanes.
- Piramal Haveli, Bagar: a calm, beautifully kept merchant house, one of the gentlest stays in the region.
- Compare them: our guide to the haveli hotels of Shekhawati explains which suits whom, and our page on painted havelis covers the walks we arrange.
When to come and how to get there
Winter is the season: cold nights, bright days, mist over the mustard fields at dawn and long golden afternoons for photographs.
February and March: the mustard flowers, the men dance gindad with sticks before Holi, and the Shekhawati Festival brings folk music and haveli walks. We confirm the dates each year.
- Best months
- November to February
- From Jaipur
- About three and a half to four hours to Mandawa
- From Delhi
- About five to six hours
- Avoid
- April to June, when the heat is extreme
- By road: a private car is essential. Shekhawati fits neatly between Jaipur or Delhi and Bikaner.
- On the way: from Jaipur we often stop at Samode, whose palace has some of the finest painted rooms in Rajasthan.
- The easy way in: our four-night painted towns of Shekhawati journey, or the longer heritage havelis trail to Bikaner and Jaisalmer.
Painted walls beyond Shekhawati
Bundi: the Chitrashala of the Garh Palace holds turquoise-and-gold murals of Krishna and court life. Read our piece on Bundi's murals.
Samode: the palace's Durbar Hall and Sheesh Mahal are worked in paint, mirror and gold. See Samode Palace.
- Jaipur: nobles' townhouses in the walled city carry painted rooms, and Samode Haveli has a dining room covered in murals.
- The miniature link: many wall themes come straight from miniature painting. Our miniature painting page explains the schools.
- Reading the buildings: our guide to Rajasthani architecture explains brackets, jharokhas and courtyards, so the painted walls make even more sense.