Important Notice

Aurangabad School, Northern Deccan
Circa 1650
Natural pigments on paper heightened with gold
8.75 x 4.75 in (22 x 12 cm)

NON-EXPORTABLE REGISTERED ANTIQUITY

PROVENANCE
Saffronart, 25-26 April 2012, lot 2



A folio from an unidentified and dispersed illustrated manuscript with a colophon at the bottom of the composition. The arbitrary three lines are part of a continuous narrative that is seen here in isolation and hence we can currently neither explain the scene depicted nor identify the people seen. The script is closest to ‘Nevari’ which is usually found written in some fifteenth and sixteenth-century Jain texts, but the language here is a mixture of Sanskrit and an indecipherable regional dialect.

The seated man in the jharokha viewing acrobats performing outside the palace is larger in proportion to others, signifying his status and importance. Of the two ladies seen seated on separate chhataries above the jharokha, the lady under the grand domed structure is clearly meant to be identified as a senior at court.

The team of acrobats includes a male and a female drummer with an acrobat balancing on a rope tied between two poles with an intersecting central pole. An intriguing point in the composition is seen atop the intersecting pole where a crowned man is seated cross legged in dhyan mudra over a blooming lotus. The two witnesses to these scenes at the top left of the composition look surprised or amazed as indicated by their gestures. At the bottom right of the composition, a woman is seen giving alms to a sage wearing saffron robes.

Most of the stylistic features seen in this painting invoke aspects of two styles, one of an early Akbar period workshop and a central Indian chaurapanchasika style. However, the curious orange huts seen in the receding background are not a common feature of known & prevalent styles of the period.

Aurangabad School, Northern Deccan
Circa 1650
Natural pigments on paper heightened with gold
8.75 x 4.75 in (22 x 12 cm)

NON-EXPORTABLE REGISTERED ANTIQUITY

PROVENANCE
Saffronart, 25-26 April 2012, lot 2



A folio from an unidentified and dispersed illustrated manuscript with a colophon at the bottom of the composition. The arbitrary three lines are part of a continuous narrative that is seen here in isolation and hence we can currently neither explain the scene depicted nor identify the people seen. The script is closest to ‘Nevari’ which is usually found written in some fifteenth and sixteenth-century Jain texts, but the language here is a mixture of Sanskrit and an indecipherable regional dialect.

The seated man in the jharokha viewing acrobats performing outside the palace is larger in proportion to others, signifying his status and importance. Of the two ladies seen seated on separate chhataries above the jharokha, the lady under the grand domed structure is clearly meant to be identified as a senior at court.

The team of acrobats includes a male and a female drummer with an acrobat balancing on a rope tied between two poles with an intersecting central pole. An intriguing point in the composition is seen atop the intersecting pole where a crowned man is seated cross legged in dhyan mudra over a blooming lotus. The two witnesses to these scenes at the top left of the composition look surprised or amazed as indicated by their gestures. At the bottom right of the composition, a woman is seen giving alms to a sage wearing saffron robes.

Most of the stylistic features seen in this painting invoke aspects of two styles, one of an early Akbar period workshop and a central Indian chaurapanchasika style. However, the curious orange huts seen in the receding background are not a common feature of known & prevalent styles of the period.