gouache and gold on paper, in a painted oval, one line of gurmukhi script in gold on painted surface, floral cornerpieces, black inner border, red outer border
223 x 141 mm.

Footnotes

The gurmukhi inscription in gold reads: Sri guru arjan mahala 5 mahina saman [savan], 'Exalted Guru Arjan, the fifth abode [of Guruship]. The month is Savan' [the fifth month of the Bikrami calendar, corresponding to mid-July to mid-August].

This painting may have belonged to a series of paintings relating to a composition by Guru Arjan, the fifth Sikh Guru, called 'Bara Maha' or 'Twelve Months' (also known as 'Bara Masa' in Hindi). This is a form of folk poetry in which the emotions and yearnings of the human soul separated from its Divine Essence - personified as the pangs of the bride for her spouse - are expressed in terms of the changing moods of nature over the twelve months of the Bikrami calendar. Of the hundred versions of Bara Maha songs so far identified, Guru Arjan's composition (in raga Majh) is the second oldest, being preceded by a composition by Guru Nanak (in Raga raga Tukhari).

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- Islamic and Indian Art
- Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art

Guru Arjan seated on a terrace beneath a canopy Pahari, early 19th Century

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Matthew Thomas