AN ILLUSTRATION DEPICTING THE CASTES OF WOMEN

In the upper register a blue-skinned lord personified as Krishna is led by two sakhis to his beloved who awaits standing within a small pavilion. In the middle register a confident nayika gestures to two noblemen, at right another man sits with downcast eyes. The lower register depicting a stylized landscape with mauve rocks and blossoming foliage with a central pristine white temple. Crisply painted in greens/blues/reds and mauve with bright white architectural elements and gold embellishment.

Several other folios from the same series have made their appearance in the marketplace in recent years. Each depicts a woman of a different caste (jat) as an archetypal nayika (heroine) and in the presence of Krishna.  

There has been some discussion among specialists regarding the provenance of this series which is here accepted as originating from Bundelkhand. One folio offered at Sothebys New York in 2011 was described as from Malpura. Similarities to a well-known 18th Century pothi-style Bhagavata Purana - repeatedly assigned by scholars to Malpura are numerous. Distinctive facial types with side tendrils, the disposition and stances of the figures, crisp color palette, compartmentalization with registers of simultaneous action, schematic decorative foliage, pillow-like mauve hillsides and stylized crosshatching which define zones of landscape all appear to be parallel features of this Malpura workshop (during the mid-late 18th Century) and our present painting. Other attributions for the present series have alternately been suggested by specialists at times to Marwar and Malwa.

However, research by Dr. N. P. Upadhyay identifies these as jaatbhed or representations of castes. The eminent poet Dev had composed a text describing women of various castes. Regional variations of this text were subsequently produced with colorful characteristics attributed to the various protagonists.

Our painting depicts a Kaachhin or the wife of a gardener.  The couplet on the verso describes how the seductive look and gestures of this woman steals men's hearts.

For other paintings from this series see Sotheby's London, April 1990, lot 62 (there described “probably Bundelkand”), Sotheby's New York, September 15, 2011, lot 81 (Malpura) and Sotheby's London, October 8, 2014, lot 282.