An illustration to a ragamala series: Megha Raga, India, North Deccan, late 17th century

The iconography of Megha Raga usually depicts Krishna dancing under stormy skies surrounded by female musicians celebrating the onset of the rainy season. In ragamala paintings from the Decccan, we often see the figure of Krishna replaced by a dancing girl in the centre, as illustrated in the present painting. For another depiction of Megha Raga with a dancing girl instead of Krishna, from Golconda or Hyderabad in the Deccan dated to the mid-eighteenth century, in the collection of the Berlin Museum of Indian Art, see Waldschmidt, 1975, fig.10. Folios from similar ragamala series from the Deccan are illustrated in Seyller and Seitz, 2010, no. 38-40, pp. 118-123.

For an illustration from a Deccan ragamala series dated to circa 1670-80 in the present sale, see Lot 55.