EARLY 18TH CENTURY, SOUTH INDIAN

Similar paintings on cotton are in the British Museum and given a possible attribution to late 18th century Pulicat. This distinct group of Indian trade cotton textiles is known as sarasa and produced in South India for the markets of South-east Asia. One of the textiles in the British Museum depicts the final battle between Rama and Ravana. This type of iconography was particularly valued in the Indonesian Archipelago (Asia 1995, 1110, 0.1, A.L. Dallapiccola, South Indian Paintings, a catalogue of the British Museum Collection, London, 2010)