Live Auction 16723The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller: Travel and Americana
AN ALBUM LEAF: ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: DESAKHYA RAGINI, AND A FLORAL COMPOSITION
Lot 1019

AN ALBUM LEAF: ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: DESAKHYA RAGINI, AND A FLORAL COMPOSITION

MUGHAL, DELHI, NORTH INDIA, LATE 18TH CENTURY

Closed10 May 2018

Price Realised

USD 40,000

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AN ALBUM LEAF: ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: DESAKHYA RAGINI, AND A FLORAL COMPOSITION
MUGHAL, DELHI, NORTH INDIA, LATE 18TH CENTURY
Gouache with gold on paper, depicting wrestlers and acrobats practising in a courtyard, on an album page decorated with a floral lattice in polychrome on blue ground, the reverse with a central floral panel surrounded by a border comprising a variety of golden blooms and birds, with nasta'liq and devanagari inscriptions on verso and recto identifying the ragini and possibly the name of a patron ‘Raja Raghu putra Raja Ajay’ (Raja Raghu son of Raja Ajay)
Painting: 16 5/8 x 7 5/8 in. (42.2 x 27.2 cm.)
Folio: 17.4/8 x 11 5/8 in. (44.6 x 29.4 cm.)

Gazdar Pte Ltd., Bombay.
Acquired from the above, 12 August 1963.

Specialist note

The painting here clearly shows that it has been worked by a Delhi-trained artist both in the painting of the figures and in their setting within a landscape with trees. The margin is an unusually brightly colored version of a Mughal floral lattice. A similar margin is found surrounding a painting by the Lucknow artist Mir Kalan Khan in the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection (Steven Markel and Tushara Bindu Gude, India’s Fabled City: The Art of Courtly Lucknow, Los Angeles, 2011, no.17, p.168).