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10<br />
AN ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: VASANT RAGA<br />
HYDERABAD, DECCAN, CENTRAL <strong>INDIA</strong>,<br />
THIRD QUARTER 18TH CENTURY<br />
Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, a crowned blue-skinned<br />
deity is celebrating holi festival with his female courtiers, musicians are<br />
playing, the courtiers are pumping coloured water from elaborate gilt lotas, in<br />
gold foliated margins, the reverse with calligraphic panel in elegant nasta’liq<br />
script within gilt foral margins, with wide burnt orange borders with elegant<br />
foral lattice, with identifcation inscription in black nasta’liq script above<br />
Painting 9 x 6¡in. (22.8 x 16cm.); Folio 16º x 10¡in. (41.3 x 26.4cm.)<br />
£4,000-6,000 $5,700-8,500<br />
€5,000-7,500<br />
11<br />
AN ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: BHAIRAV RAGA<br />
HYDERABAD, DECCAN, CENTRAL <strong>INDIA</strong>,<br />
THIRD QUARTER 18TH CENTURY<br />
Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the lone lady depicted richly<br />
attired, kneeling and worshipping at a shivalingam beneath an opened domed<br />
pavilion on a river bank, fruit oferings to her sides, the bull Nandi behind,<br />
identifcation inscription in white nasta’liq script above, the reverse with<br />
calligraphic panel in elegant nasta’liq script within gilt foral margins, with wide<br />
burnt orange borders with elegant scrolling foral garlands<br />
Painting 9Ω x 5Ωin. (24.2 x 14cm.); Folio16º x 10¡in. (41.3 x 26.4cm.)<br />
£4,000-6,000 $5,700-8,500<br />
€5,000-7,500<br />
Vasant raga is named after the season of renewal, Spring. The scene aptly<br />
depicts the festival of Holi, an auspicious event in the Hindu calendar. Our<br />
illustration shows Krishna dancing and young female courtiers elegantly<br />
moving in unison spraying coloured water suggesting the esoteric dance of<br />
elated beings, the raas leela, leading to a transcendental state resulting in<br />
unlimited love for the deity and the triumph of good over evil. This victory<br />
of illumination over darkness is also very present during Holi festival with<br />
the burning of efigies of Holika on bonfres erected at crossroads and<br />
culminating with the exuberant spraying of colored powders and water.<br />
With its calm ambiance of worship at a deserted shrine on a river bank, our<br />
illustrated album page captures the essence of Bhairav raga which relates to<br />
the earlier times of the day with a mood that is serene or peaceful. Bhairav,<br />
or dog, references the companion of Shiva, to whom this musical mode is<br />
dedicated, when the deity assumes the form of an ascetic wandering the<br />
cremation grounds.<br />
In the Rajasthani tradition Bhairav raga’s iconography consists of a seated<br />
lord being anointed by his female consort while listening to musicians on a<br />
terrace (Klaus Ebeling, Ragamala Painting, Basel, Paris and New Delhi, 1973,<br />
no. 187, p. 241).<br />
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