Page 90 - 2020 September 23 Himalyan and Southeast Asian Works of Art Bonhams

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A DARBAR SCENE WITH SANSAR CHAND OF KANGRA AND the same age (Beach, Fischer & Goswamy, Masters of Indian Painting,
JAI SINGH KANHAIYA Zurich, 2011, p.723, fig.2). Also compare with another smaller,
ATTRIBUTED TO BASSIA OR SHIBA roughly contemporaneous portrait in the Harvard Art Museum,
KANGRA, EARLY 19TH CENTURY showing Chand’s attendant sporting a slightly thinner beard (Archer,
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Indian Paintings in the Punjab Hills, London, 1973, p.199, no.11).
8 1/2 x 12 3/4 in. (21.7 x 32.5 cm), irregular The painting’s attribution to either Bassia, the brother of Purkhu, or
Bassia’s son Shiba stems from personal correspondence between
$10,000 - 15,000 Milo Beach and B.N. Goswamy.

Provenance
Typical of darbar scenes, the artist employed a converging diagonal Bharany, Kolkata, 1962
arrangement showing the principal protagonists at its peak. This Collection of Milo Cleveland Beach
technique in Indian painting stemmed from the earliest Mughal
prototypes and remained popular through the 19th century. A similar
composition attributed to Purkhu and dated c.1800 also depicts
Sansar Chand before a muted white and grey background at about

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