
Matthew Thomas
Senior Specialist
Sold for £5,100 inc. premium
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Senior Specialist
As described by Andrew Topsfield (Court Painting at Udaipur, Zurich 2001, p. 144), this Sakunavali series was a unique commission in Udaipur. It consisted of almost a hundred pages, graded in progressive categories from evil (asubham, e.g. a burgled house or families of dogs and monkeys) and undesirable (neshta, e.g. a poor man), to good (subham, e.g. cows in a byre), excellent (srestha, e.g. a yogi in a hermitage or a king enthroned) and the best of all (uttaram, e.g. winged gaja-simhas or a pride of lions).
Most subjects of this series are drawn from everyday experiences and rendered with an 'unaffected directness of observation'. Irrespective of connotations of loss, ill health or bad fortune, bad omens are realized as sensitively as the good ones.
For other paintings from the same series see Bautze, Indian Miniature Painting, Amsterdam 1987, no. 23; Goswamy and Smith, Domains of Wonder, 2005, no. 31. See also Sotheby's, London, 1966, lot 100; Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 6th October 2008, lot 391; Christie's, Arts of the Islamic and Indian Worlds, 10th October 2013, lot 196; Christie's, South Kensington, Arts and Textiles of the Islamic and Indian Worlds, 11th October 2013, lot 507, and Simon Ray, November 2014, no. 53.