ARTS OF INDIA

72
AN ILLUSTRATION TO A KRISHNA SUDAMA SERIES: SUDAMA AND SUSHILA IN THEIR
HOVEL
PROBABLY GARHWAL, NORTH INDIA, CIRCA 1790
Opaque pigments on paper, Sudama and his wife sit in their hut, she advises him to travel to Dwarka to
meet Krishna, a bag of beaten rice prepared for him lies on the foor behind Sudama, a walled city in the
background, with red-speckled pink borders and blue frame, the protective fy-leaf with Mandi Collection
label
Painting 8 x 11in. (20.3 x 28cm.); with blue borders 10¡ x 13æin. (27 x 34.8cm.)
£12,000-18,000 $18,000-26,000
€15,000-22,000
PROVENANCE:
Formerly in the Mandi Royal Collection No. 508
Sudama was a childhood friend of Krishna. Sudama later fell on hard times as can be seen in the
depiction here of his hovel with the cow dung cakes drying outside, the broken spinning wheel in the
courtyard and the holes in the thatched roof above them. Sudama resists the idea of asking Krishna for
help and covers his ears as his wife Sushila berates him.
A closely related earlier depiction of this same scene is attributed by W. G. Archer to Garhwal circa
1775-90, (W. G. Archer, Indian Paintings of the Punjab Hills, 1973, vol. I, no.7(i), p.80). The dark blue sky
and the angular architecture in the background found in our painting confrm that it fts within the style
of the Garhwal school.
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