Page 46 - Pundole's Auction M0015

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PROPERTY FROM THE FAMILY COLLECTION OF
NANDALAL BOSE

RABINDRANATH TAGORE the majority of his paintings were produced in the last ten
years of his life, he had sketched as a young man and
1861?–?1941 continued to draw intermittently throughout his life. As in
this instance, Tagore gifted many of these early works to
Mythical Animals family and friends. Towards the end of his life, he became
more and more fascinated with painting, and what began
Ink on paper as doodles on his working manuscripts, became an
6¾ × 9¼ in. (17.2 × 23.6 cm.); obsession. In his last ten years, he is known to have
8 × 12¼ in. (20.3 × 31.1 cm.) (2) produced almost two thousand pictures, yet few works
Signed ‘Rabindra’ in Bengali lower middle and inscribed remain in private hands, as the majority of the artist’s
‘London New 5’ in Bengali on reverse paintings form part of the collections of the National Gallery
of Modern Art in New Delhi and the Rabindra Bhavana in
??30,00,000?–?50,00,000 Santiniketan.

NATIONAL ART TREASURE – NON-EXPORTABLE ITEM ‘Rabindranath Tagore’s artistic adventure began with
(Please refer to the Terms and Conditions of Sale doodles that turned crossed-out words and lines into
at the back of the catalogue) images that assumed expressive and sometimes
grotesque forms. They were unplanned and shaped by
PROVENANCE: accidents and intuitive decisions but often seem to carry
From the collection of Nandalal Bose’s eldest daughter, memories of ‘primitive’ art objects he should have seen in
Gouri Bhanja, nee Bose and thence by descent. books and museums. Something of this spilled into his
early paintings. Many of them represent animals, but they
For much of his life, despite a deep reverence for all the are seldom of the real ones we know of; more often they
arts, Rabindranath Tagore focused on his writing. Although represent what he has described as ‘a probable animal

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