RAJASTHAN, NORTH INDIA, EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Lotus Picchvais are used in temples during summer months to create a cool atmosphere in the shrine of Shri Nathji. The backgrounds of lotus flowers help devotees to visualise the banks of the river Yamuna where Krishna grew up. For an illustration of two devotees worshipping Shri Nathji standing in front of a lotus picchvai, see Madhuvanti Gose (ed.), Gates of the Lord, The Tradition of Krishna Paintings, exhibition catalogue, Chicago, 2015, fig.1, p.96. Another was in the Gujral Collection, Germany and is published in Landscapes of the Gods, Picchvais and Miniatures from the Gujral and other Private Collections, Prahlad Bubbar, 2013, cat.8. With its meandering lotus stems and the numerous bees flying from flowers to leaves, the present painting recalls the works of the ashtachap poets in which Krishna is compared to a bee and his beloved gopis to lotuses. In the 18th century, it seems that lotus picchvais were block-printed and that painted examples appeared in the 1800s. For a similar picchvai, although with Gokulchandramaji, see Gose, op.cit., cat.38, p.98.