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Lot Essay
This detailed folio is from a well-known Bhagavata Purana series produced at the Bikaner court in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The present folio is a delightful example of the series, famed for its miniature proportions, delicate coloring, and elegant and meticulous details. Pages from this series are extensively published, with scholars often praising the works for their perfect precision of line and splendid treatment of figures, architecture, vegetation, and overall composition. Estimated to comprise about one hundred pages in total, the series can be considered among the finest examples of Rajput painting.
In the present scene, after slaying the malevolent king Shishupala, Krishna bathes in the Yamuna river with the Pandava brothers and several gopis. Musicians ceremoniously play as the group frolics in the water. The Kauravas arrive in the background, Krishna is depicted once again, this time in the court of the Pandava’s splendid palace. The Kauravas are seen entering the palace from the left, in awe and envy of their cousins’ wealth. The landscape is drawn with acute attention to detail, with periodic patches of tall grass. Meanwhile, the flow of the Yamuna river is delineated through uniform scale-like curves. The figures - tall, slender and cinched at the waist - are without a doubt characteristic of local Bikaner workshops.
This illustration is from a very large and now dispersed set that was once a part of the Bikaner Palace Collection. Work on this series is said to have begun during the reign of Maharaja Anup Singh (r. 1669-98) and completed during the reign of Maharaja Sujan Singh (r. 1700-36). While some scholars speculated production took place over two decades at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, others have implied it could have taken fifty or more years to finish. Undoubtedly, several master artists from the royal atelier at Bikaner have contributed to these paintings.
Other pages from this series are now in important museum and private collections, including the San Diego Museum of Art (Edwin Binney 3rd Collection, acc. no. 1990.785), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. nos. 1974.219 and 2005.361), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Paul F. Walter Collection, acc. no. M.86.345.2), the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution (acc. no. S2018.1.46), the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia (acc. no. 1997.15), the Kronos Collection (see T. McInerney, S. Kossak and N. Haider, Divine Pleasures: Painting from India’s Rajput Courts: the Kronos Collections, New York, 2016, pp. 100-1, cat. no. 25), the Goenka Collection (see B.N. Goswamy, Painted Visions: The Goenka Collection of Indian Paintings, New Delhi, 1991, pp. 151-4, cat nos. 120-3), and the collection of the late William Ehrenfeld (see D. Ehnbom, Indian Miniatures: The Ehrenfeld Collection, New York, 185, pp. 148-9, cat 68). An earlier folio from this series from the Paul Allen Collection recently sold at Christie’s New York, 10 November 2022, lot 195 for $252,000.
In the present scene, after slaying the malevolent king Shishupala, Krishna bathes in the Yamuna river with the Pandava brothers and several gopis. Musicians ceremoniously play as the group frolics in the water. The Kauravas arrive in the background, Krishna is depicted once again, this time in the court of the Pandava’s splendid palace. The Kauravas are seen entering the palace from the left, in awe and envy of their cousins’ wealth. The landscape is drawn with acute attention to detail, with periodic patches of tall grass. Meanwhile, the flow of the Yamuna river is delineated through uniform scale-like curves. The figures - tall, slender and cinched at the waist - are without a doubt characteristic of local Bikaner workshops.
This illustration is from a very large and now dispersed set that was once a part of the Bikaner Palace Collection. Work on this series is said to have begun during the reign of Maharaja Anup Singh (r. 1669-98) and completed during the reign of Maharaja Sujan Singh (r. 1700-36). While some scholars speculated production took place over two decades at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, others have implied it could have taken fifty or more years to finish. Undoubtedly, several master artists from the royal atelier at Bikaner have contributed to these paintings.
Other pages from this series are now in important museum and private collections, including the San Diego Museum of Art (Edwin Binney 3rd Collection, acc. no. 1990.785), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. nos. 1974.219 and 2005.361), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Paul F. Walter Collection, acc. no. M.86.345.2), the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution (acc. no. S2018.1.46), the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia (acc. no. 1997.15), the Kronos Collection (see T. McInerney, S. Kossak and N. Haider, Divine Pleasures: Painting from India’s Rajput Courts: the Kronos Collections, New York, 2016, pp. 100-1, cat. no. 25), the Goenka Collection (see B.N. Goswamy, Painted Visions: The Goenka Collection of Indian Paintings, New Delhi, 1991, pp. 151-4, cat nos. 120-3), and the collection of the late William Ehrenfeld (see D. Ehnbom, Indian Miniatures: The Ehrenfeld Collection, New York, 185, pp. 148-9, cat 68). An earlier folio from this series from the Paul Allen Collection recently sold at Christie’s New York, 10 November 2022, lot 195 for $252,000.