Page 110 - Bonhams Indian and Himalayan Art September 2013

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Two illustrations from the Bhagavata Purana A portrait of Maharaja Bhim Chand of Bilaspur
Orissa, circa 1775 Bilaspur (Basohli), circa 1680
Opaque watercolor on paper; Krishna & Balrama pay homage to the Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; one line identification inscription
Brahman wives; Krishna wields a broken bow and defeats Kamsa’s army; in takri at foot of portrait, verso with eleven lines of text; Raja Bhim
both with six lines of Devanagari in the lower register, pages 222 and 224, Chand of the Kahlurea clan of Bilaspur (r. 1667-1712) stands against a
Folio: 9 1/2 x 14 3/4 in. (24 x 37.5 cm) green background holding a talwar in his right hand.
$4,000 - 6,000 Folio: 8 1/8 x 4 3/4 in. (20.7 x 12 cm)
$12,000 - 18,000
Two other pages from this series are in the Brooklyn Museum of Art
(1993.199 and 1990.185.1) see Poster, Realms of Heroism, 1994, no. 254 Bhim Chand was a successful ruler of the small hill warring state. He
and Bautze, Lotosmund und Lowenritt, 1991, no. 12. Also see Christie’s, allied himself with the great Sikh ruler Gobindh Singh to lead a successful
New York, 16 September 2008, lot 456. resistance against the Mughal Empire. In 1692, he abdicated the throne
of Bilaspur at the peak of his power to be a fakir.
Provenance:
Private Collection, New York For another portrait of Bhim Chand in a similar pose see Skelton, Indian
Acquired in Paris in 1980s miniatures from the XVth to XIXth Centuries, Venice, 1961, pl. 38. Also
compare with a portrait of Ajmer Chand in the Brooklyn Museum of Art
(1999.136.3).

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