Chandraveer, Son of Hindol Raga

The following nine lots are from a dispersed album that was once in the Mandi Royal Collection. Most of the paintings are from a Ragamala series, a group of works inspired by a genre of poetry that assigned a specific form, mood and ambience to various musical modes. Ragamala paintings were particularly popular in the Punjab Hills ateliers and while the present lots were certainly produced in such a workshop, they reveal the hand of artists trained in more than one tradition.

These paintings may be attributed to the Bilaspur School on the basis of stylistic features, in particular the sensitive rendering of the faces and features of the female and male figures, the latter with a delicate long spiral lock running down the side of the face, revealing the influence of the imperial Mughal style of northern India, see Archer, 1973, vol. I, p. 230. The treatment of the background details and foliage recall the style of Mankot while the color palette with its shades of mauve and lilac suggest a Deccani influence as well. Indeed these works are remarkable for their combination of restraint and verve and may be considered examples of Bilaspur painting at its best.

Compare the iconography of the present lot with a drawing identified as Vanvicha, Son of Hindol Raga,  in the collection of the National Museum, New Delhi, see Ebeling, 1973, no. 377. For more paintings similar to the present series, see Galloway, 2005, nos. 20-28.