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Lot Essay
This finely rendered Guler portrait of a seated nobleman smoking a huqqa pipe on a cool white marble terrace appears to have been modelled on or adapted from a Mughal original. Scholars Goswamy and Fischer suggest that around 1720, when Pandit Seu (c.1680-1740) completed his ‘Guler Ramayana’ series, he came in contact with naturalistic paintings generally associated with the late Mughal court. This could have occurred while he was travelling in the plains himself (perhaps on a pilgrimage) or a painter from the Mughal court could have come up to from the plains bringing with him a new style of painting. It is also quite possible that Pandit Seu’s patron, Raja Dalip Singh of Guler, acquired a set of Mughal works providing his atelier access to Mughal models. (B.N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer, Pahari Masters – Court Painters of Northern India, Zurich, 1992, p. 216).
Several similarities can be drawn with mid-eighteenth century portraits known to be by or attributed to the master painter Nainsukh (c.1710-1778), the younger son of Pandit Seu. The posture of our seated nobleman, with his left arm resting on this thigh and right hand holding a huqqa pipe, can be closely compared to a drawing of Mir Mannu in the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh (acc. no. B-60), illustrated by B.N. Goswamy in Nainsukh of Guler, Zurich, 1997, pp. 102-103, no. 27. Both figures are dressed in similarly tied jamas, multiple necklaces and a curved hilt dagger tucked into their cummerbund on the left side. The elegant floral motifs of the carpet; the style and positioning of the draw-string bolster covers and cushions; and the placement of the huqqa on a small elegant mat with a scrolling pipe all resemble the setting of Raja Balwant Singh in The Singer Ladbhai sings to Balwant Singh, now in the British Museum in London (acc. no. 1948-10-9- 0130), illustrated by Goswamy in op. cit., pp. 128-129, no.40.
Several similarities can be drawn with mid-eighteenth century portraits known to be by or attributed to the master painter Nainsukh (c.1710-1778), the younger son of Pandit Seu. The posture of our seated nobleman, with his left arm resting on this thigh and right hand holding a huqqa pipe, can be closely compared to a drawing of Mir Mannu in the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh (acc. no. B-60), illustrated by B.N. Goswamy in Nainsukh of Guler, Zurich, 1997, pp. 102-103, no. 27. Both figures are dressed in similarly tied jamas, multiple necklaces and a curved hilt dagger tucked into their cummerbund on the left side. The elegant floral motifs of the carpet; the style and positioning of the draw-string bolster covers and cushions; and the placement of the huqqa on a small elegant mat with a scrolling pipe all resemble the setting of Raja Balwant Singh in The Singer Ladbhai sings to Balwant Singh, now in the British Museum in London (acc. no. 1948-10-9- 0130), illustrated by Goswamy in op. cit., pp. 128-129, no.40.