An illustration from the Maharbharata: Draupadi and the Five Pandava Brothers

INDIA, PUNJAB HILLS, BASHOLI, CIRCA 1740

细节

An illustration from the Maharbharata: Draupadi and the Five Pandava Brothers
India, Punjab Hills, Basholi, circa 1740
Depicting the king Aururoha wearing a purple angharka seated on a raised dais against a green bolster within a palace chamber, gazing towards Draupadi clad in a brightly colored sari and accompanied by her five Pandava husbands all wearing pointed golden crowns, against a background of moss green with a strip of blue sky in the distance, surrounded by a wide red border and with five lines of Sanskrit inscription on the verso
Opaque watercolor on wasli
6¼ x 10½ in. (15.9 x 26.6 cm.), painting
7¾ x 12¼ in. (19.6 x 31.1 cm.), folio

来源

Doris Wiener Gallery, New York, late 1960s or 1970s

拍品专文

Arjuna, one of the five Pandava brothers, won his wife Draupadi through a show of skill by winning a difficult archery contest set up by her father. The Pandavas were polyandrous, thus Draupadi became the bride to all five. Here, Draupadi stands to the right with her husbands-Arjuna, Bhima, Nakula, Sahadeva, and Yudhisthira-against a field of moss green. To the left, a king identified as Aruroha in the inscription on the verso sits within a palace chamber. In Doris' words, "The two halves of the painting are counter-weighted like a balance scale in perfect equilibrium." W.G. Archer has pointed to the parallels between this painting and the Basholi Gita Govinda series reproduced in his definitive study, Indian Paintings of the Punjab Hills, pl.32-34.