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Lot 43

Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury (Indian, 1899-1975)
An Inmate of the Harem

25 October 2021, 10:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £20,250 inc. premium

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Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury (Indian, 1899-1975)

An Inmate of the Harem
signed centre right in Bengali
pencil, pen and ink and watercolour with heightening in gold and white on paper laid down on board
23 x 31cm (9 1/16 x 12 3/16in).

Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired by a previous owner in the late 1990s an auction in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

There are two labels on the reverse, one printed Exhibition/Modern (East) Indian Painting/Sent by Mr. O. C. Gangoly,/Calcutta, with the number of the picture (20), the title and the name of the artist in ink, and a second typewritten label with the price of $270.

'He [Chowdhury] did not attempt the emotional approach and peter out into sickly sentimentality. If his women were decorative they were meant to be so [...] They were not intended to be manifestations of a spiritual ideal, but to frankly convey their human charm...' (Karl Khandalavala, 'Decorative Artist', in P. R. Ramachandra Rao (ed.), Chowdhury and his Art, Bombay 1943, p. 73, quoted in N. Tuli, The Flamed Mosaic: Indian Contemporary Painting, Ahmedabad 1997, p. 195, n. 48).

Additional information

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