Page 113 - Bonhams Indian and Himalayan Art September 2013
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173 shows earlier versions of the same themes as the later sets. There is also
An illustration from a ragamala series: devakari ragini strong influence from Mankot, particularly visible in the treatment of the
Bilaspur, 1700-1720 trees, furniture, and textiles (see Archer, Indian Paintings, London, 1973,
Opaque watercolor and gold and silver on paper; the bare-chest female Mankot, nos. 24,25 & 27) as well as in the Mughal-style refinement that
devotee is seated holding out a conch before an elaborate saligram occasionally appears in early Mankot painting (see Lerner, Flame and the
stand in form of Garuda and surrounded by silver vessels containing the Lotus, New York, 1984, no. 63, pp. 166-168).
implements of worship, smoke and flames arise from the burning ghee
and from around the salagrama stones. The most surprising element in these paintings is the influence of Deccani
Image: 8 1/2 x 5 in. (21.5 x 12.7 cm); Folio: 10 1/2 x 7 in. (26.7 X 17.8 cm) painting, evident in the striking but cool palette of lilac, mauve and
$4,000 - 6,000 turquoise, compositional ingenuity, and the strong element of fantasy. For
further folios see Galloway and Kwiatkowski Indian Miniatures from the
This painting is from a dispersed album that was once in the Mandi royal Archer and Other Private Collections, 2005, nos. 21-8.
collection. Many of its paintings are of typical Hindu/Rajput subjects,
such as avatars of Vishnu and other deities, as well as ragas, raginis The same iconography (but with a much simpler image of Garuda)
and ragaputras belonging to the Pahari system of musical modes. occurs for this ragini in the later ragamala from Bilaspur now in Berlin
Though clearly the product of a single studio in the Punjab Hills, they (Waldschmidt, vol. 1, fig. 53, where Devakari is called a ragini of Malkos)
are nonetheless probably the work of artists trained in more than one and also in an early eighteenth century set from Basohli now in Boston
tradition. The style of painting dates from the beginning of the 18th (Ebeling, p. 284). In other Pahari ragamalas for Devagiri ragini the Siva
century and would appear to be closest in style to Bilaspur painting, lingam is substituted for the Garuda (Ebeling, fig. 339). Mesakarna likens
which was one of the few Pahari states to produce vertical ragamalas at the sound of the raga to that of clarified butter dripping in a sacrifice
this date. The closest parallel is an almost complete ragamala now in the
Museum für Asiatische Kunst in Berlin, believed to be from Bilaspur in
the second quarter of the 18th century (ibid.). Earlier ragamala subjects
from Bilaspur adopt the same upright format while their iconography
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