An illustration to a nayika series: A lady with deer, North India, Basohli, late 17th century
Auction Closed
March 31, 12:40 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
gouache heightened with gold and beetle-wing on paper, within black and white rules with narrow red margins, the upper margin inscribed in takri script ‘saragana nayika’ (the heroine with a companion), verso with the numerals ‘15’
painting: 17 by 15.5cm.
leaf: 20 by 18.8cm.
Latifi Collection, Bombay.
Private Collection, UK, 1970s-2014.
Brendan Lynch and Oliver Forge, London, 2014.
Private Collection, UK, 1970s-2014.
Brendan Lynch and Oliver Forge, London, 2014.
This illustration from a nayika series depicts an elegantly dressed lady making an offering to a black buck depicted alongside its mate. Although the inscription identifies her as ‘the heroine with a companion’, she appears to be anxiously waiting for her husband or lover, with the deer keeping her company in his absence.
Our nayika is dressed in a long, transparent peshwaj, striped trousers, a long patka over her head and shoulders with single flowers at the borders. For a similarly dressed nayika in another Basohli painting from a rasamanjari series, dated to circa 1660-70, see B.N. Goswamy and E. Fischer, Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India, Delhi, 1992, no.17, p.52. Two slightly earlier paintings from Basohli, dated circa 1670-75, have similar compositions depicting ladies standing in a grove of trees with deer (W.G. Archer, Indian Paintings from the Punjab Hills, London, 1973, Vol.II, Basohli, 5(i), (ii), p.24). The figure of our lady, the two deer, and the tree on the right of our painting with drooping flowering branches are closer in composition to 5(ii), in the Mehta collection in Ahmedabad. The slender tree on the left, the yellow background and the strip of blue sky of our painting find comparison with a ragamala illustration from Basohli, dated 1680, depicting a seated bearded prince with three deer before him. The painting, formerly in the collection of Claudio Moscatelli, sold recently at auction, Christie’s London, 25 May 2017, lot 26.
For other late seventeenth-century paintings from Basohli sold in these rooms, see The Sven Gahlin Collection, 6 October 2015, lots 90 and 92.
Our nayika is dressed in a long, transparent peshwaj, striped trousers, a long patka over her head and shoulders with single flowers at the borders. For a similarly dressed nayika in another Basohli painting from a rasamanjari series, dated to circa 1660-70, see B.N. Goswamy and E. Fischer, Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India, Delhi, 1992, no.17, p.52. Two slightly earlier paintings from Basohli, dated circa 1670-75, have similar compositions depicting ladies standing in a grove of trees with deer (W.G. Archer, Indian Paintings from the Punjab Hills, London, 1973, Vol.II, Basohli, 5(i), (ii), p.24). The figure of our lady, the two deer, and the tree on the right of our painting with drooping flowering branches are closer in composition to 5(ii), in the Mehta collection in Ahmedabad. The slender tree on the left, the yellow background and the strip of blue sky of our painting find comparison with a ragamala illustration from Basohli, dated 1680, depicting a seated bearded prince with three deer before him. The painting, formerly in the collection of Claudio Moscatelli, sold recently at auction, Christie’s London, 25 May 2017, lot 26.
For other late seventeenth-century paintings from Basohli sold in these rooms, see The Sven Gahlin Collection, 6 October 2015, lots 90 and 92.