Page 67 - Indian and Himalayan Art Mar 21, 2018 NYC

331
AN ILLUSTRATION TO THE DVADASA
BHAVA: A HERMIT AND MIR KANAK IN
CONVERSATION ABOUT THE YOUTH
WHO IS IN LOVE WITH THE DAUGHTER
OF THE VIZIER
MUGHAL COURT ARTIST AT ALLAHABAD,
NORTH INDIA, 1600-1605
Opaque watercolor heightened with gold on
paper, two lines of black nasta’liq above and
below, the reverse with 15ll. black, red, blue and
gold nasta’liq, colored ruled margins each side,
mounted, framed and glazed
Painting 6æ x 4¡ in. (16.9 x 11.3 cm.)
folio 13æ x 8¬ in. (33.5 x 22 cm.)
$60,000-80,000
PROVENANCE
Sotheby’s London, 11 July 1972, part lot 45
(ill. as frontis).

In this scene, the old ascetic in the bottom left
hand corner is amazed at the way the young
man is looking with such lust at the portrait
of the young girl, as if she was alive. He has a
conversation with the boy about how this is
just an image and he should not be so foolish.
The boy responds “I am in love and apart from
serving her I have no other duties in the world.”
In the background landscape the hermit and
Mir Kanak are shown discussing the events in
the foreground.
The artist of this painting in the original catalogue
was identifed as “Artist B”. While the fgures are
clearly fully in the Mughal idiom, the vegetation
shows a very strong Persian infuence; the prunus
trees entwined with the cypress trees and the
dense clumps of brilliant fowering plants that line
the stream are both clear demonstrations.