Page 160 - Bonhams Indian and Himalayan Art March 2016 New York

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AN APOTHECARY
Kangra, Sikh period, mid-19th century
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; verso with unidentified ink
signature.
Image: 7 3/4 x 11 5/8 in. (19.7 x 29.5 cm);
Folio: 10 3/4 x 14 1/2 in. (27.2 x 36.8 cm)
$10,000 - 15,000

At this stall, we are greeted by a youthful apothecary grinding From a series depicting trades of the bazaar, each painting follows a
prescriptions with a pestle and mortar. To his left, another mixes a strict architectural formula, while their atmospheres differ congruent
concoction, exciting the attention of customer who jovially reaches with each vocation. The present lot has a convivial mood reiterated in
for a bottle from the low table in front. The two young men are the brightly colored glass bottles crowding the shelves and the pink
perhaps sons or apprentices of the stately posed senior dressed in an glass chandelier. Typical of others from the series there are framed
impressive gold and orange jama and green Kashmiri shawl. paintings adorning the walls. The portraits of Krishna, Shiva, and
gentile Europeans provides an insight into the manner in which these
A page from the same series inscribed in nastaliq has been read as, paintings were offered for sale to a broader community beyond the
Basarat, son of Dutta (Poster, Realms of Heroism, 1994, p.298, no. direct commission of British patrons. For sketched portraits similar
247). However, a new reading suggests that it may read Bashara, son to those in the shop, see Carey Welch, Indian Drawings and Painted
of Ditta which is supported by a faint inscription written in English on Sketches, New York, 1976, pp. 62-3, no. 25.
the reverse of the present page. Two further, without inscriptions, sold
at Sotheby’s, London, 28 April 1981, lots 139 & 140, and another is Provenance
reproduced in Fussmann, Mythos und Leben, Berlin, 1992, pp. 148-9, Private New England Estate, acquired in Paris, 1960’s
no. 70. Another from the series, from the Sven Ghalin Collection, sold
Sotheby’s, London, 6 October 2015, lot 104.

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