AWADH OR BENGAL, INDIA, CIRCA 1800

This painting of a maiden attending to her toilette on a terrace is an elegant example of a subject that was popular among Indian and European patrons and collectors in the late 18th and early 19^th century. At one level it is a purely decorative painting of a beautiful maiden in the act of bathing, but there are aspects of the iconography that relate to Indian traditions of aesthetics and musical modes. The bathing and adornment of a young woman (note the rich jewellery here) has resonances in the nayika tradition and references Alamkara and Sringara. In addition, the pose matches the pictorial representation of the Ragamala mode Desvarati Ragini in which the arms raised over the head are the iconographic clue (see Ebeling 1973, C31, pp.86-7 and as indexed).