'Company paintings' were produced by Indian artists for Europeans living and working in the Indian subcontinent, especially British employees of the East India Company. They represent a fusion of traditional Indian artistic styles with conventions and technical features borrowed from western art. Some Company paintings were specially commissioned, while others were virtually mass-produced and could be purchased in bazaars.

This Company painting is a portrait of Thakur Raja Bakhtawar Singh made by Fateh Muhammad around 1880 in western Rajasthan, probably Bikaner. The Rajput princely states had strong artistic traditions of their own, and their rulers were often generous patrons of painting. Consequently Company painting never really developed in Rajasthan to the extent that it did in many other areas of India. Occasionally, however, drawings were made in a semi-European style based on paintings from other parts of the country, and towards the end of the 19th century rulers were depicted, as here, in a European manner strongly influenced by photography; but on the whole there is little Company painting from Rajasthan.