ARTS OF INDIA

81
A SUMMER LOTUS PICCHVAI
RAJASTHAN, NORTH INDIA, EARLY 20TH CENTURY
Opaque pigments heightened with gold on cotton, of rectangular form,
Krishna and Radha standing on a lotus rising from a pond, he embraces her,
they gaze at each other lovingly, amidst a dense ground of lotus leaves and
fowers, bees fying in between, the borders with a foral garland
77º x 95Ωin. (196.3 x 242.6cm.)
£25,000-35,000 $36,000-50,000
€32,000-44,000
Lotus Picchvais are used in temples during summer months to create a
cool atmosphere in the shrine of Shri Nathji. The backgrounds of lotus
fowers help devotees to visualise the banks of the river Yamuna where
Krishna grew up. For an illustration of two devotees worshipping Shri
Nathji standing in front of a lotus picchvai, see Madhuvanti Ghose (ed.),
Gates of the Lord, The Tradition of Krishna Paintings, exhibition catalogue,
Chicago, 2015, fg.1, p.96. Another was in the Gujral Collection, Germany
and is published in Landscapes of the Gods, Picchvais and Miniatures from
the Gujral and other Private Collections, Prahlad Bubbar, 2013, cat.8. With
its meandering lotus stems and the numerous bees fying from fowers to
leaves, the present painting recalls the works of the ashtachap poets in which
Krishna is compared to a bee and his beloved gopis to lotuses. In the 18th
century, it seems that lotus picchvais were block-printed and that painted
examples appeared in the 1800s. For a similar picchvai, although with
Gokulchandramaji, see Ghose, op.cit., cat.38, p.98.
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