Lot Essay
The style, composition, and colour palette of the present work immediately evoke the famous dispersed Tantric Devi series from Basohli, dated circa 1660-70. The motif of a single figure seated on a lotus blossom with white and pink petals is clearly descended from this series; approximately half of the known folios depict Devi in a similar format. In folio 38 (see V. Dehejia, ed., Devi: The Great Goddess, 1999, p. 125, fig. 1), the artist has included a horizontal band of grass to delineate the water from which the lotus blossoms and the monochrome swath of land behind. The artist of the present work has similarly indicated the landscape but omitted the lotus stalk and water from which it should bloom.