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PROPERTY FROM THE LANIER COLLECTION Painted in a combination of Popular Mughal and and often round water vessels - as in our present
Rajasthani styles, most likely from a workshop painting. Our painting was executed close to
THE FIVE JEWELS OF KING in the orbit of Mewar - probably from the early the beginning of the reign of Maharana Jagat
LAKSHMANSENA FROM AN studio of Sahibdin or his predecessors. There Singh I when illustrations of the Gita Govinda,
UNRECORDED GITA GOVINDA are very few comparable paintings published, rasikapriya and ragamala series, as well as epics
MANUSCRIPT and none others presently known from this Gita like the Ramayana and Bhagavata Purana in pothi
ATTRIBUTABLE TO SAHIBDIN Govinda series. Another later Gita Govinda (horizontal) format, were being produced by the
India, Mewar, Popular Mughal, painting from Mewar (ca. 1665 attributed there Royal workshop in Udaipur.
circa 1620-30 to Sahibdin) in the same format as ours but
from a di erent series, is in the collection of the The text at top is taken from the rst canto of the
Opaque watercolor heightened with gold on paper Metropolitan Museum of Art New York (accession Gita Govinda.
image: 7¾ by 5¼ in. (17.7 by 12.7 cm) no. 188.103).
folio: 8¾ by 6¾ in. (20.3 by 15.2 cm) Another painting of this uncommon subject in
The name of the artist Sahibdin (active 1628- Sultanate style (ca. 1475-1500) is in the National
PROVENANCE 55) is prominently associated with the Royal Museum, New Delhi. For other relatable works
Mewar workshop of Maharana Jagat Singh I see A. Tops eld, ‘Court Painting at Udaipur: Art
Acquired 1987 (r. 1628-52) and he appears to have been its Under the Patronage of the Maharanas of Mewar’,
master, and its style has come to be associated in Artibus Asiae Sup. 44, Zurich, 2001, p. 53–84,
The ve court poets of King Lakshmansena: with his name. Many extant works of varying and A. Tops eld, ‘Sahibdin’, in M. C. Beach, E.
Jayadeva (the composer of the Gita Govinda), quality are known in this distinctive manner Fischer and B. N. Goswamy, Masters of Indian
Govardhana, Dhoi, Sarana and Umapatidhara - which we may term the “studio” of Sahibdin, Painting 1100-1650, Artibus Asiae Sup. 48/I, 2011,
the ve Jewels - with their colleague Shrutidhara given several individual hands are discernible p. 391–406, g. 1.
seated in discussion with their manuscripts - within the group. They are formally linked by
named in ink above each gure. With yellow inner compartmentalized composition / color palette / $ 7,000-9,000
and red outer borders. Yellow text panel at top
with black ink Devanagari script. gure stances / costume details and facial types
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