Illustration from a dispersed Harivamsha series, numbered 86 on the reverse
Attributed to Purkhu, Kangra,
c. 1800-15
Opaque pigments and gold on paper
Folio: 36 x 47.2 cm including red border
Portrait of a Bengali Hindu in a Landscape
c. 1790
Opaque pigments on paper
96.5 x 63.5 cm
Large paintings of birds, animals and botanical studies by Indian artists working in the late 18th century are well known and were done in significant numbers. But figure portraits like ours on this scale are almost unknown to studies. In the past it has been suggested that our unusual portrait represents a holy man, but this is clearly untenable. Hindu holy men are generally ascetics, but our figure is rather different. The elegance of his demeanor and his simple but expensive attire suggests that he was a high caste Bengali of some distinction – but there are other clues to his identity. Our figure stands on the edge of the Hugli and sailing on the river, entirely out of scale, is a small East Indiaman. This suggests that he may have been a young Gomashta working for the East India Company in one of the settlements upriver from Calcutta dealing in goods for export. Bengali Vaishnavism, which goes back to Chaitanya (1486–1534) and his successors, is particularly prevalent in the district of Bengal now bordering Jharkhand – this gives us a clue to our Bengali’s origins.
A Bengal Catfish (Sperata aor) from the Hugli River
Chunni Lall, Calcutta
Circa 1795
61.5 x 101 cm
This large and impressive painting of a Bengal Catfish (locally called Artamin in Bengali) is one of a relatively small number of paintings of fish commissioned by Europeans from Indian artists in the closing years of the 18th century. Catfish are relatively common in the Hugli river. They get their name from their prominent barbels that closely resemble the whiskers of a cat. They are ray finned and scaleless and live largely on the bottom of the river. In Bengal they are greatly prized for their delicate taste and are the main ingredient for the renowned dish known as Ilish.
This painting, almost certainly painted from life and of identical scale to a live fish, was done by the somewhat illusive artist Chunni Lall. Lall or Lal is a very common name in Bengal but our artist was probably of the family of painters of that name who worked over a long period in Patna. Henry Noltie, in his essay ‘Indian Export Art? The botanical drawings’ for “Forgotten Masters”, The Wallace Collection, 2019, has suggested that Chunni Lall may be the same artist that Mildred Archer had previously listed as Tuni Lal who was working in Patna in about 1800 and subsequently worked for Adam Freer. Our Chunni Lall worked for both Major James Nathaniel Rind and Sir James MacGregor and he painted a variety of subjects for each patron.
A Trooper of Skinner’s Horse
Attributed to Ghulam Ali Khan
Company School, Delhi, c. 1827,
Opaque pigments, gold and silver on paper,
Folio: 17.3 x 13.1 cm; Painting: 11.2 x 9.6 cm
Painted oval in gilt-decorated border; Inscribed faintly ‘Sardar Auxiliary (?) Corps’ in English in pencil just above the lower gold ruling; reverse inscribed ‘A Trooper of Col. Skinner’s Horse [Corps]’
Provenance
Bonhams 19 April 2007, lot 354
Private UK collection; by repute acquired from a house sale in North Wales
Folio from a Ragamala series
Kota, India
c. 1720
Opaque pigments with gold on paper
Folio 35.7 × 25.7 cm; painting 20.2 × 11.2 cm
Inscribed above in Devanagari in the yellow panel: 36 Shri Raga ki ragini; Asavari Ragini (in the upper right); gav do pahro (to be sung in the afternoon)
Provenance
Collection of Eva and Konrad Seitz
Asavari Ragini, a melody to be sung in the afternoon, is almost invariably represented by a tribal woman wearing a peacock-feather lower garment as she consorts with the many serpents in the den that has swarmed the grove, albeit in a surprisingly unmenacing way. In most regional expressions of the Rajasthani tradition, a dark-skinned woman sits alone on a boulder or hillock, playing a flute to tame the creatures. In this case, however, the artist has invigorated this standard imagery in several ways: refining the woman’s complexion to a light shade of blue and her bodice to a sheer golden article, wreathing her rocky throne with both a dramatic strip of grass and a lotus-filled stream teeming with fish and fowl, and transforming her musical instrument into a small elephant goad, which she plies benignly above the serpent’s head as a patient instructor might. A longer jewelled spear or sceptre with a fleur-de-lis head lies by her feet. This same minor variation occurs in the corresponding illustration in the c. 1650–60 ‘Berlin Ragamala’.1
As is the case with several other ragamala series of the Bundi/Kota style, this series has elicited divergent scholarly opinions, with some arguing for a Bundi provenance and a date at the end of the 17th century, and others placing it in Kota at a date as late as 1720.2Joachim Bautze meticulously lists other folios from the same series, which is distinguished by its flat black ruling and presence of long inscriptions in the upper border.3 The woman here does have a sharper nose than many others depicted in this series as well as the heavy eyelids characteristic of Kota painting. The colouring is rich, even flamboyant in some passages, especially in the crimson-pink gradations in the inventively faceted rocky throne and outcrop above and the orange-streaked sunrise sky. Luxuriant foliage patterns are animated in wonderfully irregular ways, and the white froth along the shoreline is as dense and palpable as any in Indian painting. Many creatures, from ducks to scorpions to serpents, possess a delightful whimsical quality.
1. Berlin ISL I 5697, published in Ernst and Eleanor Rose Waldschmidt, Miniatures of Musical Inspiration in the Collection of the Berlin Museum of Indian Art (Berlin, 1975), fig. 110.
2. Joachim Bautze, Lotosmond und Löwenritt, cat.nos.31–32; and Bautze and Amy Poster in Amy G. Poster et al., Realms of Heroism: Indian Paintings at the Brooklyn Museum (New York, 1994), cat. no.124, take the former position; Milo C. Beach, in John Seyller, ed., Rajasthani Paintings in the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art, cat.nos.46–47, subscribes to the latter. Losty, Rajput Paintings from the Ludwig Habighorst Collection, p. 30, accommodates both positions, maintaining that artists from both Bundi and Kota worked on the series at different dates.
3. Bautze, Lotosmond und Löwenritt, p. 95, n.10. Another folio (Nata Ragini, painting no.20) was subsequently offered at Bonhams 18 September 2013, lot 141.
Golconda style in the Northern Deccan, perhaps Aurangabad
c. 1750
Opaque pigments with silver and gold on paper
Folio 23.5 × 16.5 cm
Provenance
Collection of Zarrina and Antony Kurtz
Collection of Françoise and Claude Bourrelier, Paris, 1977–2014 Sotheby’s, 20 July 1977, lot 42
Published
Losty, J.P., Indian Painting 1590–1880, Oliver Forge & Brendan Lynch, New York exhibition, 2015
Krishna attired as a prince is riding an elephant composed of nine young women. Some are in dance poses and others play musical instruments including a tambura, sarangi, double-ended drum and unusually a bagpipe. Krishna here is a powerfully built young prince, rather than the boy who played with the gopis’ affections in the woods of Brindaban. He is wearing a gold crown with a peacock-tail finial with a dependent tail piece that covers the back of his neck and his shoulder. This latter feature is found in two representations of Krishna in a small set of northern Deccani Rasikapriya paintings in the British Library, tentatively dated 1720–30 (Add.21475, ff. 4 and 8, see Losty,)1 where Krishna wears a tall conical crown typical of southern India, see also Falk and Archer 1981, no. 427(iv)2 . The crown in our painting with its peacock finial suggests influence from Rajput court styles, indicating perhaps a provenance in Aurangabad where Rajput nobles were still serving in the Mughal armies in the Deccan.
The women wear a bodice and either a dhoti or a sari pulled between their legs in the north Deccan fashion and up over their shoulders. The ground is simply a strip of dark green-blue with sprays of flowers in front of it. The bold outlining of faces, eyes and heads slightly too large for their bodies suggest a date early in the eighteenth century (cf. Zebrowski 1983, figs. 217, 221).3 The liberal use of gold and silver leaf suggests influence from the southern Hindu icon-painting schools such as Tanjore.
The Golonda/Hyderabad style spread throughout the Deccan and southern India into Hindu court styles in ways which are, as yet little explored. Hindu paintings in early versions of styles such as ours are keys to eventually determine the process of transmission.
Whatever their original meaning, by this time such composite images had become vehicles for artists roughout India to exhibit their skill. Another example of a composite elephant from the Deccan is an early Bijapuri painting, c. 1600, of a prince riding an elephant composed of animals and figures in the Chester Beatty Library (Leach 1995, no. 9.670).4 A composite horse from Golconda filled with demons and animals is in Berlin (Zebrowski 1983, fig. 135).5 For a study of the genre with further examples and references, see del Bonta 1999, pp. 69–82.6
J.P. Losty
1. Losty, J.P., ‘An Album of Maratha and Deccani Paintings – Add. 21475, part 2’, see http:// britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2014/06/an-album-of-maratha-and- deccanipaintings-add21475-part-2.html
2. Falk, T., & Archer, M., Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, London, 1981
3. Zebrowski, M., Deccani Painting, London, Berkeley, Los Angeles & New Delhi, 1983
4. Leach, L.Y., Mughal and Other Indian Paintings in the Chester Beatty Library, London, 1995
5. Zebrowski, M., Deccani Painting, London, Berkeley, Los Angeles & New Delhi, 1983
6. Del Bonta, R., ‘Reinventing Nature: Mughal Composite Animal Paintings’ in ed. S.P. Verma, Flora and Fauna in Mughal Art, Mumbai, 1999
Attributed to Muhammad Gawhar
Mughal, India
c. 1690
Opaque pigments with gold on paper
Folio 39.8 × 28.1 cm; painting 20 × 12.9 cm
Reverse: Calligraphy signed by Abu’l al-Baqa al-Musawi, dated A.H. 1098/1686–87 c.e.
22.3 × 11 cm
Provenance
Private collection, UK
Images of beautiful women relaxing in the imperial zenana must have held vicarious appeal for the Mughal court, for most men were barred by protocol from ever venturing into that highly restricted part of the palace. It is also likely that royal women themselves appreciated depictions of their own realm; in fact, one late 17th-century drawing of a gawky pre-adolescent male servant is inscribed with a note indicating that it was made expressly for the amusement of the ladies of the zenana. In such a luxurious environment, where wine and music flowed freely, pleasures were savoured, and feelings of intimacy were readily kindled.
This painting captures one such stolen moment in the zenana. On a summer’s night when the crescent moon has yet to be swallowed up by approaching cloud banks, two princesses lounge together on a terrace that overlooks a shadowy grove of loquat trees. Two attendants stand and kneel nearby, proffering the contents of delicate glass bottles and a shallow golden dish. A lone musician, her lips parted slightly in song, plucks the tambura as she serenades the pair of royal ladies. Additional vessels, fruits, and blossoms are arrayed across a yellow floor covering with an unobtrusive pattern. Most of these elements are standard in such formulaic terrace scenes.1 What creates this painting’s compelling emotional warmth, however, are nuances of glance, pose, and painting technique. The two princesses, for example, lean their heads together conspiratorially so that one princess can discreetly receive the confidential whisper of the other, who simultaneously glances outward towards the viewer to watch for potential eavesdroppers. The two women sit very close, the one extending her sprawling leg between those of her companion and the other reciprocating with a hand resting suggestively on it. Curling wisps of smoke rise from three candles, which, along with the fleeting moonlight, bathe the royal coterie in soft, atmospheric light without casting overt shadows. Most of all, every bit of warm-toned flesh is given a sensuous, palpably textured surface. For example, along with the hands and torso of the standing maidservant, the faces of the two princesses and the musician are modelled with tiny, granular marks – an effect reminiscent of the style of the Mughal master Govardhan (active 1596 – c. 1645) and unlike the taut, eggshell-like treatment of faces commonly seen in the work of such mid 18th-century painters as Muhammad Afzal (active c. 1730–40). This artist renders gold-hemmed diaphanous cloth with admirable skill, as exemplified by the sheer garments worn by the princesses, and complements it with a strikingly painterly treatment of heavier but seemingly fluffy fabrics such as those of the seated servant’s mustard-coloured shawl, peach-coloured lower garment, and white patka. One more unorthodox detail is also distinctive enough to merit mention: the scratchy striations on the figures’ forearms that describe the dense network of folds in the sheer material.
Our knowledge of individual Mughal artists operating at the end of the 17 century has deepened considerably in recent years. One painter who has not yet figured significantly in that revised account is Muhammad Gawhar (or Guhar), previously known from only two ascribed works.2 On the basis of their pronounced similarities with the present work in the exact shapes of the facial features and hands, and especially the all-over texture marks applied to the face, neck, and hands, this painting and a fine bust-length image of an elegant Mughal lady holding a cup and saucer appear to relate to Muhammad Gawhar.3 It is probable that an artist this accomplished worked for a Mughal prince such as A‘zam Shah (1653–1707), who, along with his sibling, son, and nephew, Princes Mu‘azzam (1643–1712), Bidar Bakht (1670–1707), and ‘Azim al-Shan (1664–1712), was the face of imperial Mughal patronage of painting in the decades around 1700.
Mounted on the reverse of the folio are verses from a ghazal is a quatrain of Sa’ib Tabrizi (d. c. 1676) written in nasta‘liq by the 17th-century calligrapher Abu’l-Baqa al-Musawi in A.H. 1098/1686–87 C.E. From a family of Sayyids from Abarku in central Iran, he lived primarily in Isfahan, but at one point travelled to India, where he left behind a specimen written in Shahjahanabad (Delhi).4 He was in the service of the physician Taqarrub Khan, who also emigrated to India, where he served as royal physician, as well as Taqarrub Khan’s son Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali Khan.
1. Indeed, a contemporary painting with practically the same composition and series of poses, albeit with minor differences in the patterns of clothing and floor covering and especially a bright sky at sunset rather than one representing the dark of night was offered at Sotheby’s, London, 24 April 2013, lot 82.
2. Standing Youth, dated A.H. 1103/1691–92 C.E., published in B.N. Goswamy, Jeremiah P. Losty, and John Seyller, A Secret Garden: Indian Paintings from the Porret Collection (Zurich: Museum Rietberg, 2014), cat.9; and Mirza Shaykh ‘Abd al-Rahman, ascribed on the painting raqamahu Muhammad Gawhar, c. 1690-1700, and published in Sotheby’s, London, 26 October 2022, lot 69.
3. Royal Library, Windsor, RCIN 1005068.aa, f. 25r.
4. Christie’s, 10 October 2006, lot 118. His career is discussed in Mehdi Bayani, Ahval va athar-e khushnevisan, vol. 1, Tehran, A.H. 1345 H.sh./1966 C.E., pp. 22–24
Autumn Highlights: Purkhu Harivamsha folios and the Rind Album pages
We are pleased to present our Autumn Highlights, this select group of works derive from private collections and are fresh to the market. Amongst these, The Purkhu Harivamsha folios and the Rind Album pages in particular are exciting folios, as are a small group of Mughal material acquired on the London market in the 1970s.
Two of the paintings from the Purkhu Harivamsha Series belong to a well-known Pahari series of the Harivamsha (Genealogy of Hari [Vishnu]). Comprising 16,374 shlokas and traditionally credited to the ancient sage Vyasa, the text of the Harivamsha recounts the life of Krishna in a level of detail matched only by the Bhagavata Purana. This particular series, which consists of large number of paintings without a running text or even a brief synopsis on the reverse, is widely associated with the work of Purkhu, a leading artist of the Punjab Hills. Although Purkhu has no known paintings ascribed to him, his name is known from pilgrimage records in the area that establish his position within a family of professional painters.[i] His major patron was Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra (r. 1775-1823), who maintained a large painting workshop. Upon Sansar Chand’s loss of Kangra fort and town to Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1809, Purkhu apparently accompanied his patron as he moved from Kangra to the village of Samloti.[ii] If the early years of Purkhu’s long career were occupied primarily by portraits of his young patron and others at court, the years shortly after 1800 were spent illustrating or guiding the workshop production of several series, notably the Harivamsha, Gita Govinda, Rasikapriya, Shiva Purana, and Ramayana, most of which are large-scale in format and extensive in scope, regularly numbering more than a hundred paintings each.[iii]
[i] According to B.N. Goswamy and E. Fischer, Pahari Masters. Court Painters of Northern India (Zurich, 1992), p. 368, Purkhu is named as the son of Dhummun of Kiru, the brother of Buddhu and Rattu, and the father of Ramdayal, Ramkishan, Chandanu, and Ruldu.
[ii] Goswamy and Fischer, Pahari Masters, p. 368.
[iii] Goswamy and Fischer, Pahari Masters, p. 369-370.
Our two large watercolors were made for the Rind Album, compiled by Major James Nathaniel Rind (baptised 1753-1814). Born in Scotland, Rind travelled to India in 1778, where he was stationed until 1801. He held several posts during his time there, but appears to have spent most of his employment on survey duty. It seems that Rind was based in Calcutta from 1793 to 1801.
Paintings from Rind’s extensive album were first introduced to a wider audience at Sotheby’s in 1971, when part of his collection was sold by his descendants, including our Portrait of a Bengali (lot 48). Other folios in the sale included depictions of fish, birds and plants. A second sale of paintings from the Rind Album took place at the same saleroom in 1985.
While many of Rind’s paintings are relatively conventional, some are truly extraordinary. The Rind paintings included in Stuart Cary Welch’s landmark 1978 exhibition of Company School paintings are of very different subject matter. Three are botanical studies, one is an elegant depiction of a snake and one illustrates the eccentric sheep eater of Fategarh, Suza Geer Berah Geer, slowly devouring a sheep with his teeth, his face smeared with blood (Welch, 1978, no 11 & ed. Dalrymple, 2020, no 75). Rind, obviously fascinated by idiosyncratic subjects as well as more conventional botanical studies, must have therefore commissioned works from different artists or assembled his collection from several sources (Noltie 2020, p. 81). Some of Rind’s paintings bear the initials ‘J.N.R.’ in pencil on the reverse. Among the most gifted artists working for Rind was Chunni Lall whose work was also acquired by Sir James MacGregor.
Summer Highlight: A Trooper of Skinner’s Horse, Attributed to Ghulam Ali Khan
We are pleased to present this arresting oval portrait (first image above) portraying a risaldar (cavalry officer) of the legendary Skinner’s Horse, an identity established both by an English inscription on the reverse and the distinctive uniform of ‘The Yellow Boys’, the moniker given to the contingent of cavalry of 1,000 horsemen first raised by Lt. Colonel James Skinner (1778-1841) in 1803 at Hansi, a town 150 km northwest of Delhi. The Anglo-Indian Skinner was the scion of a Scottish father in the service of the East India Company and a Rajput princess. His mixed-blood heritage shaped his professional prospects. He was initially employed by the Maharaja Scindia of Gwalior, but upon the victory by British forces in 1803 accepted a position with them instead. Skinner’s Horse was disbanded in 1806, but was reconstituted in 1809, its ranks eventually swelling to 3,000 men. For his efforts, Skinner was honoured with the prestigious title ‘Companion of the Bath’ (CB) in 1826, though not without some complications of rank.
The close-up, bust-length format of the painting offers a remarkably detailed account of the soldier’s uniform. The steel Khula Khud, a type of conical helmet, is topped with a yellow plume, and enhanced with a retractable nasal bar and brass aventail, a kind of mail curtain protecting the brow, sides of the head, and neck. A padded gambeson wraps around the neck and contrasts with the colour and texture of the officer’s bushy side whiskers. The reddish-orange jacket is trimmed with fierce-looking fur to form dramatic curving shapes along the figure’s shoulder, down his front, and at the split sleeves. The twelve conical balls attached to one side of the open garment are presumably frog-buttons and served as a means to fasten the jacket. A lovely cummerbund spans the abdomen between the officer’s yellow sleeves.
This uniform matches exactly those worn in a well-known darbar painting of 1827 in which Skinner presides the acceptance of a new recruit into his regiment (1). Moreover, since it is known that the Delhi master artist responsible for that painting, Ghulam Ali Khan (active 1817-52), made numerous preparatory studies of the individually labelled officers included in that large scene, it follows that Ghulam Ali Khan created this work as well (2). Although several of the officers have complexions, noses, and bushy beards very similar to those of the risaldar here, the figure most closely resembling the individual portrayed here – especially in the detail with the corresponding semicircular patches of bare skin just below the lower lip – is labelled Amanat Khan risaldar, who is seated at the head of the row of officers on the viewer’s right. Yet for all the obvious appeal of the trooper’s flamboyant uniform, what makes his portrait truly compelling is Ghulam Ali Khan’s ability to capture his subject’s cool, self-assured demeanour. This he achieves by rendering a piercing glance, a haughtily raised eyebrow, and the planes and surface of the face built up by innumerable nuanced touches of the brush.
1 National Army Museum, London 1956-02-27-3. Signed ‘Work of Ghulam Ali Khan painter
resident of the Caliphate of Shahjahanabad completed in the Christian year 1827’, the painting is
published in William Dalrymple and Yuthika Sharma, eds., Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi,
1707-1857 (New York: Asia Society, in association with Yale University Press, 2012), cat.58.
https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1956-02-27-3
2 For the career of Ghulam Ali Khan, who made many works for James and William Fraser, see J.P.
Losty, ‘James Skinner’s Tazkirat al-Umara now digitised’, British Library Asian and African studies
blog 07 August 2014; and Yuthika Sharma in Dalrymple and Sharma, eds., 2012, pp. 41-52.
About the Gallery
With forty years of experience and expertise, today Francesca Galloway is known as one of the foremost galleries dealing in Indian painting and courtly arts. Combining a personal approach with a global outlook, we regularly exhibit internationally. Collaborating with the leading scholars in this field, our catalogues and publications are reference works in their own right, helping to advance the research and visibility of this fascinating and important subject.
