Page 11 - Bonhams NYC Indian and Himalayan Art March 2019

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LILA HAVA: KRISHNA AND RADHA EXCHANGE CLOTHES Typical for the genre and period the work is unsigned. However, the
DUTCH-BENGAL SCHOOL, CIRCA 1900 naïve and foreshortened landscape suggests that, rather than the
Oil on canvas. other way around, this lot was painted by an Indian artist trained
27 1/2 x 41 3/8 in. (69.7 x 105 cm) in European modes. Although, the figures are well-formed and this
painting might be seen as hybridizing the Bengali Kalighat style.
$8,000 - 12,000
Indian painters have always demonstrated a tremendous versatility
Also portraying Krishna and Radha exchanging clothes, an earlier in adapting their styles and techniques to the changing profiles of
painting from Garwhal has an elegant inscription elaborating on the their donors, and the rise of European patrons in the 18th and 19th
subject, which Coomaraswamy translates: century was no exception. By the end of the 19th century the Dutch
colony at Chinsurah in Calcutta, where this painting was likely made,
“The station of Radha being made Hari, and Hari, Radha. The became a major artistic hub attracting foreign and domestic patrons
twain with affections transposed, easily attain to blissful union.” alike. Compare with a more European looking composition of an
(Coomaraswamy, Catalogue of the Indian Collections in the Museum of assemblage of Hindu gods sold at Sotheby’s, London, 16 June 2009,
Fine Arts Boston, Part V, Rajput Painting, p. 191, pl. CIII, no. CCCXLVII) lot 33.

Provenance
Ernest and Rosemarie Kanzler Foundation
Sotheby’s, New York, 18 & 19 April 2002, lot 376
Private American Collection

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