Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs and Carpets

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 142. An illustration to a Ragamala series: Madhumadhavi Ragini, ascribed to Puran Nath (Hunhar II), India, Provincial Mughal, Faizabad, circa 1765.

An illustration to a Ragamala series: Madhumadhavi Ragini, ascribed to Puran Nath (Hunhar II), India, Provincial Mughal, Faizabad, circa 1765

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Auction Closed

October 27, 03:41 PM GMT

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

gouache heightened with gold on paper, within a narrow gold border, black and white rules, with wide pink and red margins, the upper margin inscribed with 2 lines of Persian verse in black nasta'liq script describing the raga, further inscribed in the lower margin in nasta'liq ''amal-e Puran Nath musavvir'' (work of the painter Puran Nath)

painting: 23.9 by 17.8cm; leaf: 29.8 by 21.9cm.

Admiral Henry John Rous, M.P. (1795-1877).
Gifted by the above to Henry Chaplin M.P., first Viscount Chaplin (1840-1923).
Sotheby's London, 10 July 1968, lot 88.
Edwin Binney 3rd, San Diego (1925-86).
Jaleh Khosrovani Diba.
Sotheby's London, The Khosrovani Diba Collection, 19 October 2016, lot 16.

Indian Miniature Painting from the Collection of Edwin Binney, 3rd, Portland Art Museum, 1974.

E. Binney, 3rd, Indian Miniature Painting from the Collection of Edwin Binney, 3rd, The Mughal and Deccani Schools, exhibition catalogue, Portland, 1973, pp.122-3, no.97.

The two lines of Persian in the upper border provide a description of this ragini -

"The image of Madhumadhavi, the fifth wife of the son of Bhrun, with her body in gold colour, uncovered head, beautiful, with her eyes full of excitement and expectation of seeing her beloved, walking gracefully in the corner of the garden and her face showing drips of sweat, during the season when flowers have opened up...."

The painting depicts a lady standing on a terrace with her companion listening to a message being delivered regarding her lover’s arrival. The lady’s anxious expression and stance, with one hand on her hip, suggests that she is annoyed as she is waiting in vain. The iconography of Madhumadhavi Ragini often includes an approaching storm but appears to have been substituted with the arrival of bad news in this instance. For other illustrated examples of this ragini, see Ebeling 1973, nos. C22, C23, 220, 250, 251.

This is a rare work by the artist Puran Nath, also known as Hunhar II (fl. circa 1730-80), who was one of the leading artists during the last two decades of the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah's reign, along with other artists such as Nidhamal, Chitarman and Govardhan. He was also the brother of Nidhamal (see Seyller and Seitz 2010, no.21, p.78). With the dispersal of the court atelier in Delhi after Muhammad Shah's death in 1748, Puran Nath accompanied the Mughal prince ‘Ali Gauhar (later Shah ‘Alam II) to Murshidabad in 1758-59 (see Roy 2012, p.22). He moved to Awadh around 1765 where Nawab Shuja al-Dawla had established his new capital in Faizabad. A comparable scene by Puran Nath which depicts a princess with her ladies celebrating in gardens and pavilions in the presence of yogis and yoginis, dated to circa 1760, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (acc.no. D.1203-1903; illus. in C. Lampert, ‘In the Image of Man; The Indian perception of the Universe through 2000 years of painting and sculpture’, Hayward Gallery, exhibition catalogue, London, 1982, no.295, p.180).