Page 182 - March 23 2022 Boinghams NYC Indian and Himalayan Art

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A PAINTING OF A PRINCE AND CONSORT ENTERTAINED
WITH A NAUTCH
NORTH INDIA, PUNJAB HILLS, GARHWAL, CIRCA 1830
Folio 7√ x 11º in. (20 x 28.6 cm.)
Image 5æ x 9º in. (14.6 x 23.5 cm.)
$20,000-30,000
PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Germany.
Bonham's New York, 18 March 2013, lot 118.

LITERATURE:
L.V. Habioghorst, Love for Pleasure: Betel, Tobacco, Wine and Drugs in Indian
Miniatures, Auflage, 2007, p. 69, fig. 43.
The present scene encapsulates all of the luxuries of noble pleasures and
nuanced romance in the Pahari courts. A young prince reclines on a day bed,
his glance fixated on his bride. The young consort sits upright, smoking from
a hookah. Perhaps a sign of discomfort, shyness, or reluctance, she is avoiding
eye contact with the prince, as she looks straight onward at a group of female
musicians performing behind a dancer entertaining the couple with a nautch
dance.

This work appears to be related to a painting attributed to Mola Ram from the
Coomaraswamy Collection, “The Timid Bride,” sold at Christie’s New York, 16
September 1999, lot 9212. In this painting, a bride turns away from her groom
hiding her face as he grasps her veil calling for her attention. The prince and
the bride both closely resemble the figures in the present lot and are depicted
in a similar palatial atmosphere. The works do not appear to have been drafted
by the same hand; however, the Mola Ram example appears to have served
as inspiration for the present lot, which borrows Mola Ram’s patterning on
both the white and off-white patterning of the carpets and cushions, the trees
emerging from behind the courtyard, the faces of the prince and consort, and
the prince’s dress and accessories.

L.V. Habioghorst, Love for Pleasure: Betel, Tobacco, Wine and Drugs in Indian Miniatures,
Auflage, 2007, cover and p. 69.

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