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Lot Essay
The present painting comes from an extensive series of ragamala paintings and dasavatara illustrations. The original place of production of the album, whether Chamba or Bilaspur, has been debated by scholars. After a study of illustrations from the Moscatelli collection, noting a particular style of Chamba turban in some folios, Catherine Glynn attributed the album to the court of Chamba (C. Glynn, A. Dallapiccola, R. Skelton, Ragamala: Paintings from India from the Claudio Moscatelli Collection, London, 2011, pg. 52). J. P. Losty notes a heavy influence of Mughal and Deccani painting, the prevalence of vertical format ragamalas from Bilaspur, the style of rendering the eyes of figures almost three-dimensionally, amongst other evidence, and argues for Bilaspur as the origin for the album (Losty, A Mystical Realm of Love: Pahari Paintings from the Eva and Konrad Seitz Collection, 2017, pp.226-227).
This painting and several others offered at auction are interesting in terms of provenance as they bear a stamp on the verso from the Royal Mandi Collection, where this ragamala series was apparently rebound in 1841. Another ragamala painting from a comparable series with similar figures and strong colors is in the Rietberg Museum, attributed to Chamba circa 1700 (inv. RVI 953, op. cit., p.34, fig. 13).Three further folios from the same series are in the Claudio Moscatelli Collection (op.cit., nos. 7, 8 and 9, pp. 52-57) and four folios in the Kronos Collections (T. McInerney, et al., Divine Pleasures: Painting from India’s Rajput Courts – The Kronos Collections, (exhibition catalogue), New York, 2016, nos. 45 – 48, pp. 142 – 149). Nine further paintings from the series, attributed then to Bilaspur, were sold at Sotheby's New York, 29 March 2006, lots 164-173. Six paintings were also sold in the Garden of Epics sale, Christie's South Kensington, 10 June 2013, lots 2-7. More recently, folios from this series were sold at Christie's London, 25 May 2017, lots 21-23 and 12 June 2018, lot 139.
This painting and several others offered at auction are interesting in terms of provenance as they bear a stamp on the verso from the Royal Mandi Collection, where this ragamala series was apparently rebound in 1841. Another ragamala painting from a comparable series with similar figures and strong colors is in the Rietberg Museum, attributed to Chamba circa 1700 (inv. RVI 953, op. cit., p.34, fig. 13).Three further folios from the same series are in the Claudio Moscatelli Collection (op.cit., nos. 7, 8 and 9, pp. 52-57) and four folios in the Kronos Collections (T. McInerney, et al., Divine Pleasures: Painting from India’s Rajput Courts – The Kronos Collections, (exhibition catalogue), New York, 2016, nos. 45 – 48, pp. 142 – 149). Nine further paintings from the series, attributed then to Bilaspur, were sold at Sotheby's New York, 29 March 2006, lots 164-173. Six paintings were also sold in the Garden of Epics sale, Christie's South Kensington, 10 June 2013, lots 2-7. More recently, folios from this series were sold at Christie's London, 25 May 2017, lots 21-23 and 12 June 2018, lot 139.