CELEBRATIONS IN A PALACE INTERIOR AT NIGHT

NORTH DECCAN, AURANGABAD OR RAJASTHAN, MEWAR, CIRCA 1700

Details

CELEBRATIONS IN A PALACE INTERIOR AT NIGHT
NORTH DECCAN, AURANGABAD OR RAJASTHAN, MEWAR, CIRCA 1700
Depicting a ruler and his consort with court ladies and a priest, seated with folded hands at a prayer ceremony, a dancing girl and musicians performing before them, whilst male attendants guarding the entrance to the pavilion engage in conversation with a boar-headed female deity, enclosed garden terraces receding in the background, within narrow gold ruled lines and red borders, the verso bearing a one-line inscription in black devanagari script mentioning the goddesses Mahalaxmi and Chilla Devi, numbered "108" in red ink
opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper
13 1/8 x 18 in. (33.4 x 45.8 cm.)

Provenance

97.056: Sotheby's London, 15 October 1997, lot 79.

Literature

Indian Paintings, Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, 1975, no. 7.

Exhibited

Indian Paintings, Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, 1975.

Lot Essay

For two other comparable paintings, see R.K. Tandan, Indian Miniature Painting, 16th through 19th Centuries, Bangalore, 1982, figs. 76a,b. Each is of the same large format with prominent architectural features, receding gardens, similar borders and a long inscription on the reverse describing the subject.
For another closely-related painting offered at auction recently, from the collection of Colonel R.K. Tandan and possibly from the same series as this lot, see Christie’s Mumbai, 18 December 2016, lot 25. Both works have similar compositions and architectural arrangement, probably depicting the same ruler with his consort being entertained by female musicians in the zenana, and the figures are rendered in a very similar manner.

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