Page 157 - Christie's Inidian and HImalayan Works of Art, March 2019

713

This fnely rendered Guler portrait of a seated nobleman smoking a huqqa Several similarities can be drawn with mid-eighteenth century portraits
pipe on a cool white marble terrace appears to have been modelled on or known to be by or attributed to the master painter Nainsukh (c.1710-1778),
adapted from a Mughal original. Scholars Goswamy and Fischer suggest that the younger son of Pandit Seu. The posture of our seated nobleman, with
around 1720, when Pandit Seu (c.1680-1740) completed his ‘Guler Ramayana’ his left arm resting on this thigh and right hand holding a huqqa pipe, can
series, he came in contact with naturalistic paintings generally associated be closely compared to a drawing of Mir Mannu in the Government Museum
with the late Mughal court. This could have occurred while he was travelling and Art Gallery, Chandigarh (acc. no. B-60), illustrated by B.N. Goswamy in
in the plains himself (perhaps on a pilgrimage) or a painter from the Mughal Nainsukh of Guler, Zurich, 1997, pp. 102-103, no. 27. Both fgures are dressed
court could have come up to from the plains bringing with him a new style of in similarly tied jamas, multiple necklaces and a curved hilt dagger tucked into
painting. It is also quite possible that Pandit Seu’s patron, Raja Dalip Singh of their cummerbund on the left side. The elegant foral motifs of the carpet;
Guler, acquired a set of Mughal works providing his atelier access to Mughal the style and positioning of the draw-string bolster covers and cushions; and
models. (B.N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer, Pahari Masters – Court Painters the placement of the huqqa on a small elegant mat with a scrolling pipe all
of Northern India, Zurich, 1992, p. 216). resemble the setting of Raja Balwant Singh in The Singer Ladbhai sings to
Balwant Singh, now in the British Museum in London (acc. no. 1948-10-9-
0130), illustrated by Goswamy in op. cit., pp. 128-129, no.40.

155