KANGRA OR GULER, CIRCA 1800

Details

THE RELUCTANT DEPARTING LOVER
KANGRA OR GULER, CIRCA 1800
Gouache heightened with gold on paper, a woman dressed in lavish orange gold-embroidered robes reluctantly leaves her lover who reclines on a divan his arm propping up his turbaned head and his hand holding on to the end of her veil, on the floor a gold hookah and a number of other vessels, around them an architectural setting, the miniature of ovoid format, the cream spandrels with polychrome floral decoration, black and gold border and pink margins
Miniature 8 3/8 x 5 5/8in. (21.2 x 14.5cm.)

Literature

Patrick Carré, Dieux, tigres et amours. Miniatures indiennes du XVe au XXe siècle, Spain, 1993, pp.64-65

Special notice

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Lot Essay

In the mid 18th century as Northern India was shaken by the invasion of Nadir Shah (1739) and the subsequent incursions by Ahmad Shah Abdali, a unlikely development in the arts took place in the Punjab Hills. Under the patronage of Raja Govardhan Chand (1744-1773) in Haripur-Guler, asylum was given to refugee artists trained in the Mughal style of painting. Thus developed the Kangra style, where artists adopted themes from the love poetry of Jayadeva, Bihari and Keshav Das and where miniatures were suffused with romantic love and bhakti mysticism (M.S. Randhawa, Kangra Paintings on Love, New Delhi, 1962, p. 19).

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