NORTHERN DECCAN, CENTRAL INDIA, CIRCA 1690-1700

This painting and the following lot come from an eighty-six page ragamala series which is unusual in its style and iconography, easily identifiable through the tomato-red borders and the striking palette of colours. Although the attribution to northern Deccan had been discussed on the basis of Deccani and Rajasthani features incorporated in these paintings, the latest essay on this ragamala series rejects the Rajasthani and Mughal elements and insist on the purely Deccani features such as the rectangular colour fields which divide the painting, filled with geometric and floral ornaments, and the palette of bright pastel tones, deep wine-red, lapis-blue and gold (John Seyller, Eva and Konrad Seitz Collection of Indian Miniatures, Mughal and Deccani Paintings, Zurich, 2010, cat.38-40, pp.117-123). Previously attributed to Aurangabad, they could in fact both have been painted for one of the semi-independant Hindu provincial courts of the northern Deccan, as early as 1640 - the style visible in this painting and the following lot would in fact have been the precursor to the 'mixed' Deccani-Rajasthani style of Aurangabad.

Further illustrated folios from this same Ragamala series are in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and in the Cincinnati Art Museum, see Joseph M. Dye II, The Arts of India Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2001, p. 161; and Ellen S. Smart, Daniel S. Walker, Pride of the Princes Indian Art of the Mughal Era in the Cincinnati Art Museum, USA, 1985, nos 23 and 24, pp. 45-47; the Walter’s Art Museum (W.905) and the San Diego Museum of Art (1990.465). Other folios have sold at auction: Christie's London, 24 April 1980, lot 52 and lot 53; 16 October 1980, lot 241 (illustrated as lot 242); 1 April 1982, lot 172; Christie’s, New York, 14 September 2010, lot 200; Christie's Online Only, 29 May-12 June 2014, lots 537 and 538. See also Marc Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, 1983, figs.32-42.

For another painting from the same series, please see the following lot.