AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A DEVI MAHATMYA SERIES: THE SAIVITE HOLY FAMILY UNIARA, CIRCA 1760-80

AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A DEVI MAHATMYA SERIES:
THE SAIVITE HOLY FAMILY
UNIARA, CIRCA 1760-80
Opaque watercolor, silver, and gold on paper; recto numbered in Devanagari in the top left margin, '12'; verso inscribed with two dedications in Braj to Hanuman and Shiva, and painted with a European glass centerpiece supporting a large bouquet of flowers and various birds;
Image: 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 in. (14 x 11.4 cm);
Folio: 6 x 6 in. (15.2 x 15.2 cm)
Footnotes:
This ebullient painting appears to be brimming with as much life and energy as the Ganges itself, seen here originating from its divine, flowing source. Gold flares throughout the sky and flourishing tree in a raking light.

A Holi-Lila painting with almost identical borders, and also numbered at the top left, is likely from the same series (Sodhi, Bundi Painting, 1999, pl. 79; attributed to Bundi, 18th century, but more likely from Uniara). A study drawing attributed to Bundi, circa 1775, has a nearly identical composition, apart from the absence of Kartikeya (ibid., pl. 47). However, the dense foliage and compressed figures among pages of a Bhagavata Purana series from Uniara, dated by colophon 1759, makes for the most compelling attribution (Cleveland Beach, Rajput painting at Bundi and Kota, 1974, pl. XLVII, figs. 48 & 49). Neighboring Bundi, Uniara was a small state whose court painting workshops flourished in the 18th century after Bundi artists were drawn there.

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.