Page 74 - Indian and Himalayan Art Mar 21, 2018 NYC
P. 74
PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF STAFFORD ELIAS
335
TWO PAINTINGS DEPICTING IMPENDING RAIN STORMS Both paintings show the excitement of the impending storm in the monsoon
KANGRA SCHOOL, NORTH INDIA, CIRCA 1820 season. In the frst the lovers go out onto the upper terrace to watch the clouds
Lovers on a rooftop watching the approaching storm; a lady on a swing build, as the thunder snakes down out of the clouds and the distant city is already in
similarly watching the storm clouds, opaque watercolor heightened with the midst of the storm. The subject of the second, the lady on a swing, is frequently
gold and silver on paper, colored margins, mounted framed and glazed associated with the three-day festival of Teej during the month of Sravana,
First painting 8Ω x 7Ω in. (21.6 x 19 cm.) excitedly celebrating the impending monsoon rains. Other Pahari versions of the
folio 11º x 10 in. (28.7 x 25.4 cm.) same scene, in increasingly countrifed settings, are in the Victoria and Albert
second painting 9¿ x 6æ in. (23.3 x 17.1 cm.)
folio 12¿ x 8¿ in. (30.8 x 20.6 cm.) (2) Museum (inv. no. IM.73-1912), in the Jagdish Mittal Collection (John Seyller, Pahari
Paintings in the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art, Hyderabad, 2014,
$20,000-30,000 no.104, pp.296-7) and in the Kronos Collection promised gift to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York (Terence McInerney, Steven M. Kossak and Navina Najat
Haider, Divine Pleasures, Painting from India’s Rajpuit Courts, The Kronos Collection,
exhibition catalogue, New York, 2016, no.73, pp.200-201).
72