AN ILLUSTRATION TO THE RASIKA PRIYA OF KESHAV DAS ATTRIBUTED TO SAHIBDIN

Alice Heeramaneck, Masterpieces of Indian Painting Formerly in the Nasli M. Heeramaneck Collections, Geneva, 1984, pp.36, pl. 15.

Fair and stable overall condition. Yellows are slightly deeper in reality. An area of loss to the lower register has been masked with backing paper and there is further loss to the lower left edge of the image, both visible in catalog illustration. There are abrasions to the white pigments throughout. There is some overpainting to the red ground at center. Pinhole to one of the white chhatris. Two further areas of loss to paper on the upper left edge have been masked with backing paper. Exhibited in a temporary frame.
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Krishna entreats Radha’s understanding, on bended knees he reaches toward her feet with his open palms. Seated against a green brocade bolster the archetypal nayika, Radha, presents a mudra (symbolic hand gesture) to Krishna. Two sakhis (confidantes) stand watching, at once bemused but slightly concerned.

This painting originated in Mewar during the reign of Maharana Jagat Singh I (r. 1628 -52) when romantic paintings like the Rasikapriya / Ragamala and Gita Govinda series as well as pothi-format epics like the Ramayana were being produced by the probably quite sizable Royal atelier centered in Udaipur, where the new Sub-Imperial Mughal style with its attention to naturalistic detail was quickly becoming fashionable. The name of the artist Sahibdin is prominently associated with this studio and he appears to have dominated its workshops as its master and head, its general style has come to be associated with his name. Many extant works of varying quality are known in this distinctive manner which we may cautiously term the “studio” or the “circle” of Sahibdin, given that several individual hands are discernible within the group.  They are formally linked by compartmentalized composition / color palette / figure stances / costume details and facial types. The present work is painted in what may be considered the highest quality associated with the Sahibdin style and exhibits a refined aesthetic clarity and a confident expressive hand. An attribution to the masters brush of Sahibdin himself is warranted. The present condition of this beautiful miniature may be an issue to some but this concern should be mitigated by the paintings lovely refined quality and attribution here to the master himself, Sahibdin. 

Refer to Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India 1100-1900,  Zurich, 2011 (the section on Sahibdin), Molly E. Aitken, The Intelligence of Tradition in Rajput Court Painting, Yale, 2010, pp. 18-19, fig .1.3, and D. Ehnbom, Indian Miniatures: The Ehrenfeld Collection, New York, 1985, cat. 48, pp. 110-11.