AN ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: VIBHASA RAGINI

MEWAR, NORTH INDIA, LATE 17TH CENTURY

Details

AN ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: VIBHASA RAGINI
MEWAR, NORTH INDIA, LATE 17TH CENTURY
Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the loving couple sits on a raised bed, he holds a bow covered with flowers and shoots a lotus as an arrow, a peacock standing on the pavilion's roof, the sun shining in the background, three lines of black devanagari text within a yellow cartouche at top, within black and silver rules with silver-speckled borders
10¼ x 8in. (26.7 x 20.3cm.)

Provenance

Acquired before 1991.

Engraved

Inscribed on recto: raga?i vibhas komal phul-dhanu? uka?u? grahai [? guhai] priy-adhar / madhu-pan hila-hi palika par jan ukacana ratri naina u- nida? banai vibhas 31 (Vibhas [is] somebody [who] with sleepy eyes, when the night escapes, sits on a bedstead [and] moves in drunkeness below the beloved having taken a delicate bow made of flowers).

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Lot Essay

This is folio 31 from this important ragamala series. Although several paintings of this ragamala appear to have been shown as early as 1957 in the United Kingdom and 1958 in the United States of America, no picture from this series is reproduced in Andrew Topsfield, Court Painting at Udaipur, Zurich, 2002. Two were published earlier by Topsfield however, in Paintings from the Rajput Courts, Indar Pasricha Gallery, London, 1986, nos. 10-11.

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