A Folio from a Dispersed Ragamala Series: Maliva Gauri Ragini, India, Madhya Pradesh / Malwa, circa 1670-80

Doris Weiner Gallery, New York, 1974 (by repute).

Sotheby's New York, 21st March 1990, lot 139.

New York private collection.

A couple - nayika and nayaka - gaze into each other's eyes as they step towards a bed. Two pillows being fluffed by a handmaiden holding a chauri (flywhisk) over her shoulder. Within a small white marble pavilion with a large elephant's head - its projecting trunk arching above them. The nayika reaches towards a wide-eyed doe. Two trees against a flat blue sky with a register of flat green ground. A lotus-filled pond below with alternating open and closed blossoms. Coral-red outer borders frame the composition.

The color palette is clear and confident with saturated primary colors. The figures display characteristic Malwa-style physiognomy - angular profiles with prominent eyes and precise definition.

Interesting is the absence of gold embellishment in the present folio and the other known examples from this dispersed series. This is a striking departure from other 17th-century Ragamala series produced in Malwa and elsewhere in Madhya Pradesh, where gold typically provided highlights on jewelry, architectural details, and decorative elements. This absence may suggest production outside a royal atelier, likely by a provincial workshop. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a folio from this same series with very similar elements: the same limited color palette with a marked sense of flatness, figure types and minimal composition with three distinct registers - also showing figures in a multi-level architectural setting - identified there as Ragini Des Variri (accession number: 1974.275). There is another at the Morgan Library (MS M. 1035.5) Manamati Ragini previously in the collection of Paul F. Walter.

In all these extant examples the architectural setting is similarly spare and whimsical. In the present painting a small white marble pavilion is capped with lattice-screen turrets and twin yellow finials - from which emerges an elephant's head with its trunk arching protectively over the lovers. This unusual motif - perhaps evoking Ganesha as the remover of obstacles - creates a canopy-like embrace above the lovers. The composition is organized into three distinct horizontal registers: a flat blue sky punctuated by two stylized trees with carefully rendered foliage; a middle ground of emerald green and a lower register depicting a lotus pond with blossoms floating on dark blue water.

The Devanagari text at the top of the folio translates as: "Maliva Gauri Ragini 10 doha: with nectar-like bodies and nectar-like words, they remain looking at each other. Justice calls out to the woman in separation - her beloved is not with her." The first part लवागोरीरागनी १० A(Maliva Gauri Ragini) identifies this specific ragini and its number (10) in the series.

The doha indicates that the verse is written in a poetic couplet in Hindi. The verse describes a scene of intense mutual gaze and "nectar-like" interaction, yet it concludes by highlighting the "justice" (or plea) of a woman in separation (virahani), suggesting a mood (rasa) of longing - or the memory of a beloved who is physically absent.

The doha itself presents an intriguing paradox: while the image shows the lover's closely together the text emphasizes separation (viraha) - describing the woman's beloved as absent. This may suggest that the painting depicts either a memory, a dream or an anticipation. The "nectar-like" reunion may exist only in the realm of longing rather than actual reality. This juxtaposition of presence and absence is fundamental to the emotions (rasa) of Indian iconography - particularly as here the poignant mood of love-in-separation.