AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A RAGAMALA SERIES: PANCHAMA RAGINI

RAGHOGARH, CIRCA 1675-80

RAGHOGARH, CIRCA 1675-80
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, within black rules and a red border; inscribed with ink in the yellow text panel above with a Sanskrit verse for Panchama ragini, numbered 25 and also 5.
Image: 9 5/8 x 7 5/8 in. (24.4 x 19.8 cm);
With borders: 11 3/8 x 9 1/8 in. (28.8 x 23.2 cm)

Panchama ragini's text speaks of contented happiness and love, and this painting gives form to the sentiment. The prince and his mistress gaze into each other's eyes, their desire signaled by a vermillion background. He reaches for her breast and, drinking her in, caresses the nape of her neck. The text from another painting of this raga describes her as, "so ravishingly beautiful...that she even carries the hearts of women...[and] is immersed in the color and joy of melodies". Outside, the musician retires his sitar, and the silence now descending upon the pavilion in the wake of his concert is interrupted by the jingle of coins landing in his palm – a rightful payment for rousing his patron. It is night, and a light breeze sways the cypress trees and tall, fecund flowers as they rise toward the starry sky.

Raghogarh was a small Rajput state in Malwa, south-east of Kota. This painting comes from a dispersed Ragamala series produced in Raghogarh that makes use of the conventional Sanskrit text for Rajasthani ragamalas. Other paintings from the series are held in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1982.462.4), the Brooklyn Museum (78.256.2), and the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Art, Hyderabad (Seyller & Mittal, Central Indian Paintings in the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art, 2019, nos.19-22; also see p.87 for a list all the known pages). Earlier publications date the series between 1630-50, but Seyller & Mittal have more recently reattributed it to 1675-80 under the patronage of Raja Lal Singh Kheechi (r.1673-97). Stylistically, there is an obvious debt to Bundelkhandi compositions of the previous twenty-five years in the multistory pavilions with domes, chhatris, and individualized brickwork, as well as the soaring arboreal displays (cf., ibid, nos.17-9). However, in contrast to Bundelkhandi painting, the figures are neater with more rounded heads, and there is a modest, but nonetheless effective, amount of facial modelling, here creating a palpable stillness in the gaze of this painting's two central lovers.

Provenance:
Doris Wiener Gallery, New York, late 1960s or early 1970s
Christie's, New York, 20 March 2012, lot 289