A half-length watercolour portrait of Raja Sahib Dayal Missar, looking to left. He wears a yellow and white turban, and a fine gold embroidered coat over a red tunic which is decorated with the collar and star of the Order of the Star of India. With the artist's monogram, lower right. Inscribed below: Rajah Sir Sahib Dial Sing K.S.I. Oval format.

Raja Sahib Dayal Missar was a Sikh military commander who fought in the Anglo-Sikh wars of the 1840s. In 1866 he was made Knight Commander of the Star of India. He was also a member of the council of the Governor General of India for making laws and regulations.

In 1867 Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, embarked on a tour of the world aboard HMS Galatea. He was the first British monarch to visit Australia and the South Asian colonnies of the British empire. Nicholas Chevalier, as correspondent for the Illustrated Australian News, accompanied the royal party at Melbourne, and was invited to join the prince's entourage on the voyage back to England. The itinerary included stops at Tahiti, Hawaii, Japan, India and Ceylon [Sri Lanka], giving Chevalier the opprotunity to produce drawings and watercolours, including several portraits. 

This is a portrait from the Indian sketches album comprising watercolours and drawings by Egron Lundgren, Nicholas Chevalier, Count von Seckendorff and Robert Gosset Woodthorpe. Most of Lundgren's works within the album are set against a backdrop of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and were presented to Queen Victoria. Chevalier's watercolours represent high-ranking Sikh and Ceylonese [Sri Lankan] people.