PROBABLY DECCAN, INDIA, 19TH CENTURY

The use of gold on a red or indigo dyed cotton ground is most commonly found on a small group of pichhvais attributed to the Deccan. The suggestion of Krishna as a the flowering creepers on the kadamba tree are also a typically Deccani representation (Vivek Nanda, Krishna & Devotion, Temple Hangings from Western India, London, 2009, p.50). A Deccani Varsha pichhvai from the Jeevak and Banoo Parpia collection has comparable cows and cowherds below and a very similar outer border (Nanda, op.cit, no.11, pp.50-51). Another comparable pichhvai from the Calico Museum, Ahmedabad, is in Kay Talway and Kalyan Krishna, Indian Pigment Paintings on cloth, London, 1979, no.66, p.57, pl.63. A gold and indigo Deccani pichhvai from the Peggy and David Rockerfeller collection sold in Christie's New York, 10 May 2018, lot 1012.

This pichhvai is from the collection of W. Uhde. A group of Indian works of art formerly from the Uhde collection were sold in Christie's New York, 20 March 2009. Those lots were all previously exhibited in the Völkerkundemuseum, Heidelberg. The same is likely for the present lot as indicated by a loan list of items to be returned to W. Uhde from the museum in 1996 in which no.15 is a 'Pichhavai'.