A Western Horned Pheasant

BY SAJNU INDIA, MANDI, DATED 1810

Details

A Western Horned Pheasant
by Sajnu
India, Mandi, dated 1810
The bird in profile stalking to the left, with orange and gray speckled plumage, the head crested and the neck distinguished by a wattle-like physiogamy, with an inscription below
Opaque pigments and ink on paper
7 x 8 1/8 in. (18 x 20.5 cm.)

Provenance

Spink and Son, Ltd., London, before 1982
Private collection, New England, acquired at Sotheby's New York, 28 October 1991, lot 63

Literature

Spink & Son, Ltd., Two Thousand Years of Indian Art, London, 1982, no. 117.

Lot Essay

The inscription in nagari translates as "in samvat 1867, sastra samvat 86, on the eleventh day of Jyestha, [this] phulgar was painted by Sajnu." Orinthological studies by named Pahari artists are extremely rare. This Western Horned Pheasant (Tragopan melanocephalus), also known as a "phalgun" in India, would have been painted by Sajnu while he was in the service of Raja Isvari Sen of Mandi, and in the same year that he completed the Hamir Hath series for his patron.

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