Enrica Medugno
Senior Sale Coordinator
Lot 249
The Ten Sikh Gurus seated on a terrace attended by Bala and Mardana, the Guru Granth Sahib in the centre Punjab, probably Amritsar, attributed to Puran Singh Musavar, circa 1880
22 May 2025, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£12,000 - £15,000
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Oliver White
Head of Department
The Ten Sikh Gurus seated on a terrace attended by Bala and Mardana, the Guru Granth Sahib in the centre
Punjab, probably Amritsar, attributed to Puran Singh Musavar, circa 1880
Punjab, probably Amritsar, attributed to Puran Singh Musavar, circa 1880
gouache, gold and silver on paper, identifying inscriptions, together with the sequential number of each Guru written in gurmukhi in silver, dark blue inner border, pink outer border, backed with a sheet of paper with coloured margin rules
335 x 355 mm.
335 x 355 mm.
Footnotes
This well-known composition depicts the ten Gurus positioned around the sacred scripture. Curiously, the only Guru with a nimbus is Guru Nanak, who rests against a cushion under the branches of a sprawling tree, symbolic of the royal umbrella. His constant companion, Bhai Mardana, plays a rebab while Bhai Bala waves a peacock-feathered fly-whisk.
As this painting is mounted on a folio with margins commonly used in manuscript copies of the Sikh scriptures, and it is possible that this painting was meant for inclusion in such a text.
The artist attribution has been made on the basis of another painting of the ten Gurus (though with a different placement of each figure) by Puran Singh 'Musavar' in the collection of the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh (Acc. No. 3787). The inscription below that painting states that Puran Singh lived in Katra Ahluwalian in Amritsar.
For another similar composition sold in these rooms see Bonhams, Islamic & Indian Art, 5th April 2011, lot 295.