Page 139 - September 20th 2021, Indian and Himalayan Art Christie's NYC

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AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A RASIKAPRIYA SERIES: RADHA
UPBRAIDS KRISHNA FOR GOING WITH OTHER WOMEN
INDIA, PAHARI HILLS, GULER, MASTER OF THE FIRST
GENERATION AFTER MANAKU AND NAINSUKH, CIRCA 1750-60
Folio 10 x 7Ω in. (25.4 x 19.1 cm.)
Image 8º x 6 in. (21 x 15.2 cm.)
$60,000-80,000
PROVENANCE:
Pahari Paintings from the Eva and Konrad Seitz Collection – Part II;
Francesca Galloway, Asia Week New York, 9-17 March 2017.

Today your eyes are red as if painted in the colors of mahavar. Either you
were awake all night or you fell at someone’s feet and the mahavar from
her feet came into your eyes. I am brimming with love and anger. Tell
me, your eyes are red because of longing for me or is it because you love
someone else?
Rasikipriya 7,18. Translation by Harsha V. Dehejia

In his captivating epic on love and jealousy, the Rasikapriya, the Hindi
court poet Keshavdas (1555-1617) describes a heroine, or nayika, as one
of eight types according to the state of her relationship to her hero, or
nayaka. The Khandita Nayika, or “One Enraged with her Lover,” describes
a heroine incensed after their partner spends the night in another
woman’s company.
In Indian painting, particularly in the Pahari region, the divine lovers
Radha and Krishna take on the roles of nayika and nayaka in Rasikapriya
or Ashtanayika (“Eight Heroine”) series. In the present painting, an
offended and upset Radha rebukes Krishna for his infidelity as he returns
to her doorstep in the early morning. Krishna’s eyes carry a slight red
flush from sleeplessness, while his bright red lips suggest he has been
kissing another woman’s hennaed feet, recalling classic depictions of
Krishna hennaing Radha’s feet, Svadhinapatika Nayika (“One Who has
her Lover in Subjection”).
Another page from this series is in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich (see
H. Dehejia, Rasikapriya: Ritikavya of Keshavdas in Ateliers of Love, New
Delhi, 2013, p. 264) , several are in the Konrad and Eva Seitz Collection,
while another, Vipradlabdha Nayika (“One Deceived by her Lover”), is in
the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art (acc. no. 76.279,
illustrated by Seyller and Mittal in Pahari Paintings in the Jagdish and
Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art, Hyderabad, 2014, p. 216, cat. 74).
Seyller suggests the series is the work of Kama, the son of Nainsukh,
demonstrating strong influences from Nainsukh himself — sensitive
modeling of the figures’ faces— yet softer than the styles of his other
sons Ranjha or Khushala or Manaku’s son Fattu. The painting’s indigo
border is also indicative of the period in Guler painting circa 1760-1780.