BUNDI, RAJASTHAN, INDIA, SECOND HALF 18TH CENTURY

The portrait of our princess, with the heavily shadowed outline and plain green ground typical of Bundi painting, relates closely to other paintings of the second half of the 18^th century (see Milo Cleveland Beach, Rajput Painting at Bundi and Kota, Ascona, 1974, no. 40 and p.20). Similar portraits are also found in the wall paintings of the royal fort at Bundi (Beach, An Unknown Treasure in Rajasthan – the Bundi wall paintings, London, 2014, p.63 and p.66). The headdress worn in the present painting is more unusual and may identify her as a princess or lady of title rather than a courtesan and relates the present painting very closely to one in the Louvre Abu Dhabi which is of a similar impressive size and dated circa 1750 (LAD 2012.102). The scene of a princess or courtesan drinking alone on a terrace from a delicately small wine glass, no doubt in expectation of company, is not an unusual motif and a comparable painting from Hyderabad, circa 1700, forms one side of a double page opening to an album (Darielle Mason, Intimate Worlds, Indian Paintings from the Alvin O. Bellak Collection, Philadelphia, 2001, no.42, p.114). A very similar Bundi painting with a lady drinking but shown at a jharoka window was sold at Sotheby's, New York, 6 October 1990, lot 101.