An album of miniatures depicting a Bhagavata Purana series, India, Bikaner, mid-17th century

gouache heightened with gold on paper, later mounted on brown stout paper and bound in a red leather binding decorated with polychrome and gold foliate cartouches

In good condition, the paintings have been mounted on brown cardboard, some smudges and stains, losses to the paint and minor repainting, as viewed.
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This album is a rare surviving example of Rajput manuscript production. The miniature paintings would have probably originally been part of a scroll that was later divided up and remounted into its present state in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. The folios illustrate scenes from the Bhagavata Purana, that describes the life and various manifestations of Lord Krishna.

The Bikaner ruler Rai Singh (r.1571-1611) was a keen patron of the arts and responsible for commissioning an early well known, now dispersed, Bhagavata Purana series circa 1610, that combined the popular Mughal and early Rajput styles (See Goetz 1950, fig.91 and Ehnbom 1985, nos.17 & 18). Rai Singh was the first in a long line of Bikaner rulers with the responsibility of commanding Mughal forces in the Deccan. This resulted in Deccani miniatures finding their way back to the Bikaner court, where they were imitated and emulated by local artists. Deccani characteristics such as an attention to decorative detailing and a softer palette began to appear in Bikaner paintings. The inclusion of lilac and sea green in the palette of the current manuscript is indicative of the Deccani influence on Bikaner painting. Later into the seventeenth century Rao Singh's grandson, Rao Karan Singh (r.1631-69) established an organised atelier of artists led by the Mughal master Ali Reza. This atelier laid down the foundations of the Bikaneri idiom that reached its pinnacle in the later half of the seventeenth century, with artists successfully combining Mughal and Deccani styles within a Rajput context.

A later Bhagavata Purana series was produced in Bikaner between 1675 and 1700 (Pal 1978, no.25 and Ehnbom 1985, no.68), that included illustrations of varying quality (see McInerney 2016, p.100 for further discussion on this later series). On stylistic grounds it is likely that the current lot was probably produced circa 1650-60, the period between the two recorded Bhagavata Purana series.