Lot 279
  • 279

AN IRREPRESSIBLE MAIDEN

Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • AN IRREPRESSIBLE MAIDEN
  • Opaque watercolor heightened with gold on paper
  • image: 7¼ by 5¼ in. (17.7 by 12.7 cm)
  • folio: 13 by 9½ in. (33 by 22.8 cm)

Provenance

Sir Howard Hodgkin
Sam Fogg Ltd., London
Acquired 1999 

Condition

Very slight surface abrasions with minor age-related staining. Slight stains on the blue inner borders and red outer borders. With small reinforced crack to lower edge of inner blue folio border. Very minor losses to outer edges. Verso: slight staining. Old ink inscriptions. Old adhesions along top and some outer edges. Conservation framed.
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.

Catalogue Note

In this delightfully elegant painting, a young maiden is seen in the heat of an outdoor summer day, wearing a diaphanous muslin upper garment and transparent shawl.  She grasps the slender trunk of a leafy mango tree - the long black hair falling down her back visible behind her. One foot languidly slides out of her slipper.  Her closed hennaed palm is raised in a youthful mudra of objection, as her stern governess gestures, reminding her that it's past time to return home to perform her rituals.  Against a brilliant warm yellow background with swirling gray-blue clouds above as flowers blossom beneath her feet.  With blue-green inner and wide red outer borders with black ruled lines.

This extremely sensitive and refined painting shows the confluence of both Deccani and Rajasthani (particularly Bundi/Kotah) traditions.  Its glowing color, sensuality and lively movement seem Deccani.  Costume details like the maiden's veil and long patka, delicate jeweled ornaments and her fine facial features all seem to suggest a Golconda origin.  The maiden's yearning touch of a slender tree trunk is a repeated motif in Deccani works and we may find a comparably insouciant attitude in the "Courtesan" - see Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, London, 1983, fig.179 for a Golconda painting from the latter Seventeenth Century whose mysterious Mona Lisa-like smile reminds us greatly of our young maiden. 

Our imploring gray-haired duenna has her counterpart in several known paintings from Kotah and Bundi in Rajasthan during the early Nineteenth Century.  We find very close comparables in paintings from Kotah.  These works - although not nearly as fine, crisply painted or expressive as our own - depict very similar governess figures with nearly identical hand gestures, costume and frustrated facial expressions.  Our charming maiden seems to have originated as a Deccani motif which found favor in Rajasthan - perhaps brought there by relocating Deccani artists able to recapture the lighthearted charm found in the earlier Golconda artworks.