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Lot Essay
The painting illustrates Gundamalara ragaputra, the son of Megh Raga, as a dark-skinned hunter carrying a bow and arrow, wearing a skirt made of leaves and with a deer skin draped over his shoulders. He is depicted in a beautiful forest surrounded by birds. Kshemakarna’s text describes him as a man from the Vindhya mountains (in central India) with his head covered with banana and palm leaves.
This illustrated series is the earliest known ragamala based on Kshemakarna’s Sanskrit text. Kshemakarna was a court priest in the 16th century at Rewa in Madhya Pradesh. Kshemakarna’s text, variously dated to 1509 or 1570, had a pivotal influence on early ragamala painting. It describes the ragamala family comprising six principal ragas, with their five or six raginis (wives), and eight or nine ragaputras (sons of ragas). The paintings closely follow the descriptions in the accompanying text. Previously attributed to the Deccan, this ragamala series is now more commonly catalogued as sub-imperial or ‘popular Mughal’. Although not successfully attributed to any particular court or patron, it has been suggested that the paintings are closely related in style to the work of artists who were discharged from Emperor Akbar’s library when his son Jahangir came to the throne in 1605 (Glynn, Skelton, Dallapiccola, London, 2011, p.24).
For further reading on this ragamala set, see Joachim K. Bautze, “Iconographic Remarks on Some Folios of the Oldest Illustrated Kshemakarna Ragamala”, in Exploration in the History of South Asia: Essays in Honour of Dietmar Rothermund, New Delhi, 1999, pp.155-62 and Habighorst, 2006.
Another folio from the same manuscript is in the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. 2001.112). Other folios have sold at auction recently at Christie’s, London, 25 May 2017, lots 1, 2; Bonhams, New York, 13 March 2017, lot 3141; and Christie’s, New York, 31 March 2005, lot 226.
For two other folios from the same ragamala series in this sale, please see lots 170 and 171.
This illustrated series is the earliest known ragamala based on Kshemakarna’s Sanskrit text. Kshemakarna was a court priest in the 16th century at Rewa in Madhya Pradesh. Kshemakarna’s text, variously dated to 1509 or 1570, had a pivotal influence on early ragamala painting. It describes the ragamala family comprising six principal ragas, with their five or six raginis (wives), and eight or nine ragaputras (sons of ragas). The paintings closely follow the descriptions in the accompanying text. Previously attributed to the Deccan, this ragamala series is now more commonly catalogued as sub-imperial or ‘popular Mughal’. Although not successfully attributed to any particular court or patron, it has been suggested that the paintings are closely related in style to the work of artists who were discharged from Emperor Akbar’s library when his son Jahangir came to the throne in 1605 (Glynn, Skelton, Dallapiccola, London, 2011, p.24).
For further reading on this ragamala set, see Joachim K. Bautze, “Iconographic Remarks on Some Folios of the Oldest Illustrated Kshemakarna Ragamala”, in Exploration in the History of South Asia: Essays in Honour of Dietmar Rothermund, New Delhi, 1999, pp.155-62 and Habighorst, 2006.
Another folio from the same manuscript is in the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. 2001.112). Other folios have sold at auction recently at Christie’s, London, 25 May 2017, lots 1, 2; Bonhams, New York, 13 March 2017, lot 3141; and Christie’s, New York, 31 March 2005, lot 226.
For two other folios from the same ragamala series in this sale, please see lots 170 and 171.