AN ILLUSTRATION TO THE LANKA KANDA OF THE RAMAYANA: KUMBHAKARNA GREETS RAVANA

NORTH INDIA, GULER OR KANGRA, CIRCA 1850

Details

AN ILLUSTRATION TO THE LANKA KANDA OF THE RAMAYANA: KUMBHAKARNA GREETS RAVANA
NORTH INDIA, GULER OR KANGRA, CIRCA 1850
The giant, Kumbhakarna, pays obeisance to his older brother, the ten-headed King of Lanka, Ravana, while demons in the rest of the palace commence preparations for battle with Rama and his army, with narrow blue borders with scrolling floral vine and pink speckled margins, verso bearing old typed gallery label and stamp of "TULA RAM, 36 Red Fort DELHI," inscribed with lanka kanda ("Book of Lanka") in black devanagari script to upper right
opaque watercolor heightened with gold on paper
15 ½ x 20 ½ in. (39.2 x 52 cm.)

Provenance

84.01: Sotheby's London, 31 January 1984, lot 234.
Offered at Sotheby's New York, Important Indian Miniatures from the Paul F. Walter Collection, 14 November 2002, lot 81.

Lot Essay

This painting is an illustration from the Lanka Kanda (The Book of Lanka), also known as the Yuddha Kanda (The Book of War), which is the sixth book of the Ramayana. The Ramayana continued to a popular subject with Pahari patrons and artists well into the mid-nineteenth century. The elaborate architectural settings and lively animal-headed demons are particularly noteworthy in these later Ramayana paintings.
Another painting from this series, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.73.79), is illustrated in R.C. Craven (ed.), Ramayana Pahari Paintings, Mumbai, 1990, no.9, pg. 100.

More from The Collection of Paul F. Walter

View All