AN ILLUSTRATION TO THE CANDAYANA OF DA'UD

Fair and stable overall condition with stains, losses to paper and some abrasions to pigment due to age, all visible in catalog illustration. Hairline tears to upper right and middle right edges of image have been repaired with strips of backing paper on verso. Inscription on verso. Exhibited in a temporary frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Perhaps the best known early fusion of the Persian Sultanate and indigenous Hindu manuscript painting traditions the “Laur Chanda” comprises illustrations to a text written in Avadhi Hindi recounting the love of the surpassingly beautiful heroine Chanda for the hero Lauraka a mighty warrior. Though both are married they share an all-consuming passion for each other. In this folio in the upper register Chanda seated on her daybed pours a ewer while below Lauraka speaks with an acquaintance. The present leaf is from the same series as a folio from the Alvin O. Bellak collection with seventy-three additional leaves in the (former) Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai. The resplendent palace interior is ornamented with gold-embellished arabesques and foliate patterns representing mosaic tiles and carpeting, its lovely gold leaf Persianate architectural elements rising against a lapis blue sky.

Although significantly damaged this refined and fragile manuscript folio still retains its aesthetic power and remains an example of one of the most important moments in the history of the pictorial arts of India,  when Muslim and Hindu visual traditions meet and combine and find stunning resolution . 

Other folios from this important series are dispersed in public and private collections worldwide.

Refer V.N. Desai, Life at Court: Art for India’s Rulers 16th -19th Centuries, Boston, 1985, cat.4, p. 5; B.N. Goswamy, Essence of Indian Art, San Francisco, 1986, cat.2, p. 34 and D. Mason, ed., Intimate Worlds: Indian Paintings from the Alvin O. Bellak Collection, Philadelphia, 2001, cat. 10, pp. 50-51.