Dora Tan
Specialist
Lot 537
FOUR PARTIAL FOLIOS FROM A BHAGAVATA PURARA SERIES
ATTRIBUTED TO SAHIBDIN, MEWAR, CIRCA 1645
21 March 2023, 18:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$31,875 inc. premium
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FOUR PARTIAL FOLIOS FROM A BHAGAVATA PURARA SERIES
ATTRIBUTED TO SAHIBDIN, MEWAR, CIRCA 1645
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper;
Image: 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 in. (16.5 x 11.4 cm), the smallest;
Image: 6 3/4 x 7 1/2 in. (17.2 x 19 cm), the largest
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper;
Image: 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 in. (16.5 x 11.4 cm), the smallest;
Image: 6 3/4 x 7 1/2 in. (17.2 x 19 cm), the largest
Footnotes
Sahibdin was the pre-eminent studio master at the Mewar court under the reign and ambitious patronage of Maharana Jagat Singh I (r. 1628-52). A Muslim artist, he is credited with the innovative integration of hitherto disparate elements of early Rajput and popular Mughal painting traditions. For a full discussion, see Topsfield, Court Painting at Udaipur, 2001, pp. 53-84.
These four partial folios belong to Sahibdin's expansive 1648 Bhagavata Purana series. The largest surviving group, consisting of four books fro this series, is held in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, while a small number of dispersed, and in some cases fragmentary, pages like these are known (ibid, p. 69 [n122]; also see pp. 69 & 71, figs. 39 & 40 for two illustrations). The present group is painted with a refined aesthetic clarity and a confident expressive hand, indicating the master's brush of Sahibdin himself. This attribution can further be surmised by their close comparison in color, exterior backdrops, and figural treatment with illustrations from Sahibdin's subsequent project after the Bhagavata Purana, the 1652 Yuddhakanda (or 'Battle Book') of the Ramayana, that has a colophon suggesting the book was almost exclusively the master's work (Losty, The Ramayana, 2008, p. 13 and pls. 75-124).
Provenance:
Moti Chandra, Mumbai
Pramod Chandra, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1964-2014
American Private Collection
Dr. Moti Chandra, the eminent art historian, author, numismatist, and Indologist, was Director of the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya) for over thirty years. His son, Dr. Pramod Chandra, was Harvard University's George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art for twenty-four years and was described in a tribute in the Harvard Gazette as an "exemplar of the most exacting standards in the scholarship of Indian art history." As well as a beloved professor, Pramod Chandra was a celebrated author and curator, including guest curator of the renowned 1985 exhibition "The Sculpture of India" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The contributions of both father and son to the appreciation and understanding of Indian art cannot be overstated.