NORTH INDIA, PUNJAB HILLS, GARHWAL, CIRCA 1830

The present scene encapsulates all of the luxuries of noble pleasures and nuanced romance in the Pahari courts. A young prince reclines on a day bed, his glance fixated on his bride. The young consort sits upright, smoking from a hookah. Perhaps a sign of discomfort, shyness, or reluctance, she is avoiding eye contact with the prince, as she looks straight onward at a group of female musicians performing behind a dancer entertaining the couple with a nautch dance.
This work appears to be related to a painting attributed to Mola Ram from the Coomaraswamy Collection, “The Timid Bride,” sold at Christie’s New York, 16 September 1999, lot 9212. In this painting, a bride turns away from her groom hiding her face as he grasps her veil calling for her attention. The prince and the bride both closely resemble the figures in the present lot and are depicted in a similar palatial atmosphere. The works do not appear to have been drafted by the same hand; however, the Mola Ram example appears to have served as inspiration for the present lot, which borrows Mola Ram’s patterning on both the white and off-white patterning of the carpets and cushions, the trees emerging from behind the courtyard, the faces of the prince and consort, and the prince’s dress and accessories.