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Lot Essay
This double-sided manuscript presents two ragamala illustrations of females; one depicting Gauri Ragini seated on a terrace accompanied by a cat and the other illustrating Todi Ragini who frolics on floral grass attended by a leaping fawn. Both images portray a lone woman in landscapes joined by a single animal, though despite the two images bearing parallels, each painting elicits its own distinct emotional atmosphere. Ragamala paintings were often associated with seasons and particular times of day, which were used as portals to stir various emotions of longing and love. Here, Gauri's scene evokes an evening at the height of summer, while Todi's setting invokes a misty dawn in spring.
Gauri's image carries a candor of forthright serenity. She sits on an ornate jewel encrusted chair, leaning her back against a silk embroidered emerald cushion. The pristine white terrace is decorated with a scalloped urn filled with flowers arranged in bands of orange, yellow, and splayed blossoms of white. The setting has been tended to, affording the lady in her striped orange dhoti and gossamer yellow veil a vantage point from which to take in the summer sunset in the company of an attentive cat. She holds two white garlands in an offering that the cat seems to comprehend. The stacked green hills, full foliage, and deepening sky stroked with gold and pink, allude to a heat-laden summer eve. The vivid and saturated tone ground the scene with visual weight of warmth, much as they do in two other Todi Ragini, one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (L.2018.44.4) and another also from Murshidabad in The Cleveland Museum of Art (2013.340).
The pastel palette of the Todi folio suggests instead the early light of a spring dawn. Soft bands of pink are set in a wash across the upper sky, and the female dances with the dainty pink petals of the freshly blossomed tree, floating in her filmy garments against the celadon-haze of the sky. Her rose colored slippers brush the dew-filled grass scattered with blossoms as delicate she appears. Even the fawn seems weightless, bounding towards the female who outstretches her hand with a tuft of grass. The entire scene is near translucent, appearing as if it could dissolve into its own mist laden air. These more ethereal approaches to Ragamala scenes appear on a seventeenth and an eighteenth-century Mughal painting, both which are housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum (IS.311-1951 and IS.145-1952).
The placement of these two painting on opposite sides of an album page reflects a thoughtful approach to its compilation of dispersed manuscripts. In both the milkmaid of the preceding lot (519) and Gauri Ragini, these two female images are anchored in their saturated tones and density of forms. The alternate sides of the previous lot and Todi Ragini, appear more like jewel-box-visions, idealized through their delicacy of brush and softened palettes. While the atmospheric plenitude of Gauri Ragini contrasts with the iridescent lightness of Todi Ragini, a compositional dialogue synchronizes these two sides - two women in the quietude of their setting, unencumbered by the presence of another, share a tender and intimate exchange with a companion creature.
Gauri's image carries a candor of forthright serenity. She sits on an ornate jewel encrusted chair, leaning her back against a silk embroidered emerald cushion. The pristine white terrace is decorated with a scalloped urn filled with flowers arranged in bands of orange, yellow, and splayed blossoms of white. The setting has been tended to, affording the lady in her striped orange dhoti and gossamer yellow veil a vantage point from which to take in the summer sunset in the company of an attentive cat. She holds two white garlands in an offering that the cat seems to comprehend. The stacked green hills, full foliage, and deepening sky stroked with gold and pink, allude to a heat-laden summer eve. The vivid and saturated tone ground the scene with visual weight of warmth, much as they do in two other Todi Ragini, one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (L.2018.44.4) and another also from Murshidabad in The Cleveland Museum of Art (2013.340).
The pastel palette of the Todi folio suggests instead the early light of a spring dawn. Soft bands of pink are set in a wash across the upper sky, and the female dances with the dainty pink petals of the freshly blossomed tree, floating in her filmy garments against the celadon-haze of the sky. Her rose colored slippers brush the dew-filled grass scattered with blossoms as delicate she appears. Even the fawn seems weightless, bounding towards the female who outstretches her hand with a tuft of grass. The entire scene is near translucent, appearing as if it could dissolve into its own mist laden air. These more ethereal approaches to Ragamala scenes appear on a seventeenth and an eighteenth-century Mughal painting, both which are housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum (IS.311-1951 and IS.145-1952).
The placement of these two painting on opposite sides of an album page reflects a thoughtful approach to its compilation of dispersed manuscripts. In both the milkmaid of the preceding lot (519) and Gauri Ragini, these two female images are anchored in their saturated tones and density of forms. The alternate sides of the previous lot and Todi Ragini, appear more like jewel-box-visions, idealized through their delicacy of brush and softened palettes. While the atmospheric plenitude of Gauri Ragini contrasts with the iridescent lightness of Todi Ragini, a compositional dialogue synchronizes these two sides - two women in the quietude of their setting, unencumbered by the presence of another, share a tender and intimate exchange with a companion creature.