Arts of the Islamic World & India

Arts of the Islamic World & India

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 193. Two lovers in a pavilion during a storm, India, Provincial Mughal, Murshidabad, circa 1750-60.

PROPERTY FROM A PRESTIGIOUS EUROPEAN PRIVATE COLLECTION

Two lovers in a pavilion during a storm, India, Provincial Mughal, Murshidabad, circa 1750-60

Auction Closed

October 23, 01:24 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

gouache heightened with gold and silver on paper, margins trimmed, laid down on later card

painting: 26.7 by 38.6cm.

Acquired from John Lawrence Fine Arts, London, March 1991

The dramatic, stormy night sky with streaks of lightning appears to echo the emotions of the lovers in embrace. The opulent use of gold, the pale figures and the white architectural surfaces are typical of the painting style in Murshidabad in the mid-eighteenth century. The dresses and the faces of the ladies, their almond-shaped eyes in particular, are closely comparable to a painting of a princess and her maids listening music on a palace terrace, attributed to Murshidabad and dated to circa 1760, in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (acc. no.IM.99-1922). Another painting with comparable figures of the ladies is an illustration to a ragamala series dated to circa 1755, formerly in the Claudio Moscatelli collection, sold at Christie’s London, 25 May 2017, lot 20.