A Celestial Figure

The illustration depicting a celestial figure playing a lute, clad in a long jeweled skirt and tunic with a wispy silver scarf over her shoulders, with outstretched wings in contrasting shades of green.

John and Berthe Ford Collection

Minor tears and abrasions to yellow border, losses to lower left corner and upper right clearly visible in catalogue illustration. Minor creasing along right edge with further minor abrasions to background red and in blue of sky. Fair overall condition. Colors of original slightly paler and brighter than catalogue illustration.
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According to Robert Skelton, the inspiration for this elegant celestial is possibly the Western Asiatic winged Victory Figure which had its roots in ancient Graeco-Roman imagery from where it was transmitted into Christian art. Winged angels were particularly popular in European paintings, drawings and engravings, some of which made their way into the Mughal court through travelers and Jesuit missionaries and were widely admired. Mughal artists were encouraged to copy these drawings, as seen in the rendition of Saint Matthew the Evangelist accompanied by angels by the artist Kesu Das, in the collection of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which is copied from an engraving of the same subject by Philip Galle after Maerten van Heemskerck, see A. Topsfield, Indian Paintings from Oxford Collections, Oxford, 1994, p. 16). Over time these and many other Western motifs were gradually incorporated into the repertoire of Mughal artists.

With the decline of the Mughal Empire in the 18th century and the consequent decline in patronage, artists migrated to the Pahari courts bringing with them the techniques, skills and devices of the Mughal atelier, which were utilized in the creation of a distinctive new style. The present illustration was no doubt executed by an artist trained in the Mughal idiom, and therefore familiar with this imagery, or copied after an earlier Mughal prototype.

'Pahari paintings particularly excel in the female figures which were conceived as the embodiment of youth, beauty and emotive sentiment...This ideal physical type is slender and elegant, radiating infinite charm, sensitiveness and refinement.' N. Chutiwongs, The Sentiments of Love, Digital publications of the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden. The present painting epitomizes this ideal of Pahari beauty. The angel's perfect face with elongated eyes and bud-shaped lips, her delicate hennaed fingers and toes and her gossamer scarf and flowing drapery encasing her willowy form, all highlight her ethereal beauty. The brilliant, contrasting color tones imbue the painting with a sense of abstraction. The clear, fluid lines, vivid color palette and the placement of the figure against a flat red ground is reminiscent of the style of Pandit Seu of Guler and the present lot could have been executed by an artist belonging to his workshop.

See W. G. Archer, Indian Paintings from the Punjab Hills, vol. II, 1973, pl. 17, for a depiction of the Goddess Tripura Sundari as a winged angel belonging t0 the Mandi school.