Enrica Medugno
Sale Coordinator
Lot 149*
An illustration from a nayika series: Virhini nayika Guler or Kangra, circa 1800
14 November 2023, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£6,000 - £8,000
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Matthew Thomas
Senior Specialist
An illustration from a nayika series: Virhini nayika
Guler or Kangra, circa 1800
Guler or Kangra, circa 1800
gouache and gold on paper
203 x 133 mm.
203 x 133 mm.
Footnotes
Provenance
The collection of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947).
On loan to the Fogg Art Museum (label on backboard, 10415.9 - AKC).
Thence by descent.
Against an almost frosted white background, the nayika's bleak disposition is amplified by the sharp and barren tree that stands almost as a spiky halo, reflecting her despair. The birds mating in the dead of winter only serve to remind the viewer of the heroine's loneliness by contrast. Comparison can be made with another nayika page of a jilted heroine with a similar moonlit palette in P. Pal, Pleasure Gardens of the Mind: Indian Paintings from the Jane Greenough Green Collection, Los Angeles 1994, pp. 84-85, no. 27. Pal notes the pale and subdued palette, which expresses not only the moonlight in which that scene is bathed, but also conveys the romantic nature of the subject.