Page 90 - 2020 Sept 22 Himalayin and Indian Works of Art Sotheby's NYC Asia Week

9/2/2020 Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Works of Art | Sotheby's

Indian, Hi ma layan & Southeast Asian Works of Art
New York |22 Sep 2020 | 12:00 PM EDT

Lot 366

A GROUP OF SEVEN DOUBLE - SIDED ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE RASIKAPRIYA OF KESHAV DAS,
INDIA , MALWA , 1634
Estimate: 25,000 - 35,000 USD

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE CALIFORNIA COLLECTION
A GROUP OF SEVEN DOUBLE-SIDED ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE RASIKAPRIYA OF KESHAV DAS
INDIA, MALWA, 1634

Opaque watercolor on paper heightened with gold

image: 7 by 5 ⅜ in. (17.8 by 13.7 cm)

folio: 8 ⅝ by 6 ⅝ in. (21.9 by 16.8 cm) and smaller, [7], unframed

Provenance
Sotheby’s New York, 24 September 1997, Lot 193

Catalogue Note
The group of seven double-sided illustrations depicting the varied moods of lovers (nayakas and nayikas) as related by the poet
Keshav Das in his compendium of courtly love – the Rasikapriya. This text, believed to have been composed around 1591, deals
with love in all its aspects. The ideal lovers portrayed in the poems, and paintings inspired by this literature, are Krishna and his
beloved Radha and the poet describes the moods, sentiments and emotions of various stages of their lovemaking in vivid detail.
The Rasikapriya became a very popular genre of romantic literature in Rajput courts and was the subject of numerous albums
created in Rajput ateliers over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

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