Maqbool Fida Husain (b. 1915)

Painting has been strip-lined along edges. Exposed areas of canvas visible around upper, left and lower edges of painting. Would benefit from restretching,
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From an early age, Husain demonstrated a powerful fascination with horses. As a child in Indore, Maharashtra, Husain's paternal grandfather Abdul often took him to "... visit his friend Achchan Mian, the farrier. All kinds of horses were brought there. The horse on which Resident Sahib (the British resident) went riding, the personal horse of the Maharaja from the palace, polo thoroughbreds, trained horses from the cavalry, the common horse that pulled the tonga and chariot. A horse would always feature in the stories Abdul told him at night. When he was older, (Husain) started observing and drawing horses in their perfect form and likeness using coal or pieces of chalk on the walls of his school and in his notebooks." (Rashda Siddiqui, M.F. Husain: In Conversation with Husain Paintings, New Delhi, 2001, p.110)

In 1952, inspired by his childhood equine fascination, Husain traveled to China where he studied the ceramic horses of the Sung dynasty, and was also exposed to the monumental equestrian sculpture of Italian artist Marino Marini. These horses from myth and legend became the building blocks for one of the artist's most enduring themes. Historian Yashodhara Dalmia continues: "...Husain's horses have swept across continents, amalgamating various influences into a composite form. The horse Duldul, which he had seen from his childhood on tazias in Muharram processions, had been modified, first from the Chinese rendering of the horse, and then by the plasticity of form in Franz Marc and Marino Marini's balance between horizontal and vertical lines. Husain's horses, however, are singularly his own." (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art, New Delhi, 2001, p.108) In autobiographical statements, Husain often recalled the extraordinary visual impact of the processions of Muharram, and in 1995 even included a live, painted white horse as part of an exhibition at Art Today Gallery in Delhi.

This large, spare work from the mid-1960s likely immortalizes the famed white horse (Duldul) of Imam Husayn ibn Ali, the grandchild of the Prophet Mohammed, whose martyrdom at Karbala in 680 CE is commemorated during the annual mourning ceremonies of Muharram. Ambushed by a neighboring general, Husayn and his companions were brutally attacked, showered with arrows, and ultimately decapitated. Every year, an elaborately decorated wooden horse on a mounted frame is paraded through the streets of Muslim  communities, symbolizing Imam Husayn ibn Ali's empty mount. In 1965, Husain visited Iraq and made pilgrimage to Karbala, to witness the battleground upon which Imam Husayn fell. This was a time of deep spiritual confusion for Husain, and during the mid to late 1960's, as Daniel Herwitz notes, Husain's "horses now appear riderless, without the accompanying light-bodied female figures, and are frequently transfixed by arrows." (Daniel Herwitz, Husain, Bombay, 1988, p.48)

Unusual in its scale, palette and simplicity, Husain's powerful lines and strong brushwork suggest a vivid sense of energy, power and movement. With its forelegs in mid-stride, powerful neck turned across its broad right flank, surrounded by a cloud of dust and dripping with ochre blood stains, this lone, unmounted horse, an arrow in its mouth, projects a sadness and poignancy so prevalent in Husain's treatment of his favored, mythic beast.