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Lot 134

Two winged yoginis worshipping at a mountain shrine
Kotah, circa 1840

17 March 2014, 13:00 EDT
New York

Sold for US$40,000 inc. premium

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Two winged yoginis worshipping at a mountain shrine

Kotah, circa 1840
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; kneeling before a diminutive lingam shrine within a rocky crag, the main figure reaches for a lotus garland held in a golden bowl by her winged-attendant.
Folio: 9 x 6 1/8 in. (22.9 x 15.5 cm)

Footnotes

The highly abstracted rocky mountains and scraggy short trees recall the famed hunting scenes from the 18th century. In the present lot the abstraction is taken to a heightened level with separate outcroppings in fan-like shapes replacing the conventional straight wall of layered rocks defining the ridge line. Compare with a Ram Singh hunting scene in Singh, The Kingdom that was Kotah, ‎Lalit Kala Akademi, 2009, fig. 43. The scale of the female figures is also a new convention and they thoroughly dominate the composition. However, the largess of the figures is balanced by an exceptionally fine line.

For another work by almost certainly the same hand in the Harvard Art Museum, see Cary Welch & Zebrowski, A Flower from Every Meadow, New York, 1973, p. 50-1, fig. 23. They suggest that the same artist was responsible for the 'Ladies Shooting the Tiger' in the Cleveland Museum of Art (see Leach, Indian Miniature Paintings and Drawings, Cleveland, 1986, p. 197, no. 77). However, other than the lurid green palette, there is no real connection to the treatment of the female figures. The highly refined treatment of the hair, and the thick application of gold and red to outline the fingers seems to be a unusual convention that both the Harvard page and the present lot share.

For another painting of the same subject that is inscribed as a raga Nand Malha, see Ducrot, Four Centuries of Rajput Painting, Torino, 2009, p. 63, no. ME 45.

Provenance:
Sotheby's, London, 11 July 1973, lot 180
Doris Wiener, New York
Private Collection, New York, since 1980s

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