Page 236 - Himalayan Art Macrh 19 2018 Bonhams

3118
A HINDU NOBLEMAN WITH SUPPLICANTS
COMPANY SCHOOL, PUNJAB, PROBABLY LAHORE,
SECOND HALF OF 19TH CENTURY
Pencil, watercolor, and gold on paper.
Folio: 10 x 13 3/8 in. (25.4 x 34.5 cm)

$2,000 - 3,000

As the British East India Company expanded its purview in South Asia,
Indian painters were commissioned to produce works in European
style and palette, known as the Company School. As exemplified by
the present lot, paintings of this school employ shading and linear
perspective, and are done in watercolors rather than gouache. Here
a prosperous nobleman wearing an elaborate yellow turban stands
before two supplicants with clasped hands, while his attendant and an
indigent woman follow behind him. Each figure’s face and hands are
rendered with an unerring sense of three-dimensionality.

Compare with a stylistically similar painting of a Family of Tartars, circa
1885, in the Cleveland Museum of Art (acc. no.2011.137); also see
Archer, Company Paintings , London, 1992, p.128, no.57.

Provenance
Christie’s, London, 28 September 2001, lot 385
Sotheby’s, London, 12 November 2013, lot 223

3119
TWO SNAKE CHARMERS
COMPANY SCHOOL, PUNJAB, PROBABLY LAHORE,
SECOND HALF OF 19TH CENTURY
Pencil, watercolor, and gold on paper;
Folio: 7 1/4 x 9 7/8 in. (18.7 x 23.2 cm)

$2,000 - 3,000

3117 While Company school paintings enjoyed increased popularity in India
from the 18th century onwards, it was not until the mid-19th century
that they were regularly produced in the western part of the country.
3117 Other than flora, fauna, and landscape, subjects reflecting traditional
FLOWERING HIBISCUS Indian trades and castes were also commissioned. The present
NORTH INDIA, COMPANY SCHOOL, 19TH CENTURY painting depicts two snake charmers, each playing their pungi to rouse
Watercolor on paper; inscribed in the lower right corner in pencil “1.... the drowsy serpents from their baskets. As serpents are considered
Hibiscus”. to be sacred in Hinduism due to their association with nagas, Indians
Folio: 21 x 15 3/8 in. (53.4 x 39 cm) view snake charmers as holy men who channel the divine. Compare
with another Company school painting published in Welch, Room for
Wonder, New York, 1978, p.172, no.162.
$3,000 - 5,000
Provenance
Provenance Christie’s, London, 28 September 2001, lot 386
Jean-Claude Ciancimino, London, 1987 Sotheby’s, London, 12 November 2013, lot 224

234 | BONHAMS