Born ca. 1710 to a family of painters in Guler, a small and little known state now merged in Himachal Pradesh, Nainsukh attached himself for the greater part of his career to an equally little known prince of Jasrota, Balwant Singh. From that obscure corner of the hills, through the coming together of a discriminating patron - a true connoisseur - and a painter of genius, emerged a body of work that is compelling: startling in its freshness and heart-warming in its humanity. In this book, which is the result of painstaking research spread over many years, Professor B.N. Goswamy has brought together all of Nainsukh's known or ascribable oeuvre: close to a hundred paintings, painted sketches, and drawings which contain the first flush of his thoughts.