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AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A BHAGAVATA PURANA SERIES ATTRIBUTED TO MANAKU OF GULER
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AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A BHAGAVATA PURANA SERIES ATTRIBUTED TO MANAKU OF GULER
INDIA, PUNJAB HILLS, GULER, CIRCA 1740
ink on paper, inscribed with the number ‘115’ in takri in the lower border, depicting a nobleman seated on a platform with his arms resting on his shield, wearing a turban and sporting a long and elegant moustache, a sword lies by his side, a dagger is tucked into his patka, an attendant holds a flywhsk over his master's head, the external scene is framed by trees on either side, mounted, glazed and framed
19cm x 28.5cm
The Stuart Cary Welch Collection.Sotheby’s, London, Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Part II, 31st May 2011, lot 60.
This very fine illustration is from an important set of drawings which are part of a Bhagavata Purana series produced at Guler, a small state in the Punjab Hills bordered by Kangra and Nurpur, around 1740. The series is unfinished but extensive, and comprises both completed paintings and hundreds of drawings such as the present one, which pick up the narrative when the paintings end. The series has been attributed by B. N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer to the master painter Manaku of Guler, son of Pandit Sen and elder brother of Nainsukh. In the major exhibition and catalogue, Pahari Masters: Court painters of India, India, 1992, at the museum Rietberg, Zurich, Goswamy and Fischer publish four paintings and two drawings from this great Bhagavata Purana on pp. 258-263, nos. 105-110. They estimate that the series, consisting of the finished paintings and the drawings, may have ran close to one thousand folios, a gigantic task which would have taken Manaku many years, even with the assistance of members of his prodigiously talented family.While other members of the family workshop will have helped to complete the paintings, it is likely that Manaku worked on the drawings alone as he conceived each scene. They can be seen as ‘preliminary’ rather than ‘preparatory’ works, since Manaku seems to have been constantly thinking about his compositions and altering them, as shown by the under drawings in charcoal on some of the drawings that embody his first thoughts. Unlike other drawings of his series, there is no inscription in takri on the margin, making identification of the scene difficult, since the text is very extensive and there are all kinds of episodes, generally neglected, that Manaku seems to have chosen to illustrate. The series is dense in its visual narration and scenes are treated expansively, with many pictures used to depict the detailed progress of an episode.Only a few drawings of this series have been published. No. 109 illustrated in Goswamy and Fischer, 1992, is from the collection of Dr Jyoti and Nona Datta in Los Angeles, while no. 110 is in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich. For further discussion of the painter and two drawings also at the Rietberg, see the chapter on Manaku by Goswamy and Fischer in Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer and B. N. Goswamy (eds.) with Jorrit Britschgi (project director), Masters of Indian Painting II: 1650-1900, 2011, pp. 641-658, figs. 11 and 11a.
INDIA, PUNJAB HILLS, GULER, CIRCA 1740
ink on paper, inscribed with the number ‘115’ in takri in the lower border, depicting a nobleman seated on a platform with his arms resting on his shield, wearing a turban and sporting a long and elegant moustache, a sword lies by his side, a dagger is tucked into his patka, an attendant holds a flywhsk over his master's head, the external scene is framed by trees on either side, mounted, glazed and framed
19cm x 28.5cm
The Stuart Cary Welch Collection.Sotheby’s, London, Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Part II, 31st May 2011, lot 60.
This very fine illustration is from an important set of drawings which are part of a Bhagavata Purana series produced at Guler, a small state in the Punjab Hills bordered by Kangra and Nurpur, around 1740. The series is unfinished but extensive, and comprises both completed paintings and hundreds of drawings such as the present one, which pick up the narrative when the paintings end. The series has been attributed by B. N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer to the master painter Manaku of Guler, son of Pandit Sen and elder brother of Nainsukh. In the major exhibition and catalogue, Pahari Masters: Court painters of India, India, 1992, at the museum Rietberg, Zurich, Goswamy and Fischer publish four paintings and two drawings from this great Bhagavata Purana on pp. 258-263, nos. 105-110. They estimate that the series, consisting of the finished paintings and the drawings, may have ran close to one thousand folios, a gigantic task which would have taken Manaku many years, even with the assistance of members of his prodigiously talented family.While other members of the family workshop will have helped to complete the paintings, it is likely that Manaku worked on the drawings alone as he conceived each scene. They can be seen as ‘preliminary’ rather than ‘preparatory’ works, since Manaku seems to have been constantly thinking about his compositions and altering them, as shown by the under drawings in charcoal on some of the drawings that embody his first thoughts. Unlike other drawings of his series, there is no inscription in takri on the margin, making identification of the scene difficult, since the text is very extensive and there are all kinds of episodes, generally neglected, that Manaku seems to have chosen to illustrate. The series is dense in its visual narration and scenes are treated expansively, with many pictures used to depict the detailed progress of an episode.Only a few drawings of this series have been published. No. 109 illustrated in Goswamy and Fischer, 1992, is from the collection of Dr Jyoti and Nona Datta in Los Angeles, while no. 110 is in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich. For further discussion of the painter and two drawings also at the Rietberg, see the chapter on Manaku by Goswamy and Fischer in Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer and B. N. Goswamy (eds.) with Jorrit Britschgi (project director), Masters of Indian Painting II: 1650-1900, 2011, pp. 641-658, figs. 11 and 11a.
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AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A BHAGAVATA PURANA SERIES ATTRIBUTED TO MANAKU OF GULER
INDIA, PUNJAB HILLS, GULER, CIRCA 1740
ink on paper, inscribed with the number ‘115’ in takri in the lower border, depicting a nobleman seated on a platform with his arms resting on his shield, wearing a turban and sporting a long and elegant moustache, a sword lies by his side, a dagger is tucked into his patka, an attendant holds a flywhsk over his master's head, the external scene is framed by trees on either side, mounted, glazed and framed
19cm x 28.5cm
The Stuart Cary Welch Collection.Sotheby’s, London, Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Part II, 31st May 2011, lot 60.
This very fine illustration is from an important set of drawings which are part of a Bhagavata Purana series produced at Guler, a small state in the Punjab Hills bordered by Kangra and Nurpur, around 1740. The series is unfinished but extensive, and comprises both completed paintings and hundreds of drawings such as the present one, which pick up the narrative when the paintings end. The series has been attributed by B. N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer to the master painter Manaku of Guler, son of Pandit Sen and elder brother of Nainsukh. In the major exhibition and catalogue, Pahari Masters: Court painters of India, India, 1992, at the museum Rietberg, Zurich, Goswamy and Fischer publish four paintings and two drawings from this great Bhagavata Purana on pp. 258-263, nos. 105-110. They estimate that the series, consisting of the finished paintings and the drawings, may have ran close to one thousand folios, a gigantic task which would have taken Manaku many years, even with the assistance of members of his prodigiously talented family.While other members of the family workshop will have helped to complete the paintings, it is likely that Manaku worked on the drawings alone as he conceived each scene. They can be seen as ‘preliminary’ rather than ‘preparatory’ works, since Manaku seems to have been constantly thinking about his compositions and altering them, as shown by the under drawings in charcoal on some of the drawings that embody his first thoughts. Unlike other drawings of his series, there is no inscription in takri on the margin, making identification of the scene difficult, since the text is very extensive and there are all kinds of episodes, generally neglected, that Manaku seems to have chosen to illustrate. The series is dense in its visual narration and scenes are treated expansively, with many pictures used to depict the detailed progress of an episode.Only a few drawings of this series have been published. No. 109 illustrated in Goswamy and Fischer, 1992, is from the collection of Dr Jyoti and Nona Datta in Los Angeles, while no. 110 is in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich. For further discussion of the painter and two drawings also at the Rietberg, see the chapter on Manaku by Goswamy and Fischer in Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer and B. N. Goswamy (eds.) with Jorrit Britschgi (project director), Masters of Indian Painting II: 1650-1900, 2011, pp. 641-658, figs. 11 and 11a.
INDIA, PUNJAB HILLS, GULER, CIRCA 1740
ink on paper, inscribed with the number ‘115’ in takri in the lower border, depicting a nobleman seated on a platform with his arms resting on his shield, wearing a turban and sporting a long and elegant moustache, a sword lies by his side, a dagger is tucked into his patka, an attendant holds a flywhsk over his master's head, the external scene is framed by trees on either side, mounted, glazed and framed
19cm x 28.5cm
The Stuart Cary Welch Collection.Sotheby’s, London, Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Part II, 31st May 2011, lot 60.
This very fine illustration is from an important set of drawings which are part of a Bhagavata Purana series produced at Guler, a small state in the Punjab Hills bordered by Kangra and Nurpur, around 1740. The series is unfinished but extensive, and comprises both completed paintings and hundreds of drawings such as the present one, which pick up the narrative when the paintings end. The series has been attributed by B. N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer to the master painter Manaku of Guler, son of Pandit Sen and elder brother of Nainsukh. In the major exhibition and catalogue, Pahari Masters: Court painters of India, India, 1992, at the museum Rietberg, Zurich, Goswamy and Fischer publish four paintings and two drawings from this great Bhagavata Purana on pp. 258-263, nos. 105-110. They estimate that the series, consisting of the finished paintings and the drawings, may have ran close to one thousand folios, a gigantic task which would have taken Manaku many years, even with the assistance of members of his prodigiously talented family.While other members of the family workshop will have helped to complete the paintings, it is likely that Manaku worked on the drawings alone as he conceived each scene. They can be seen as ‘preliminary’ rather than ‘preparatory’ works, since Manaku seems to have been constantly thinking about his compositions and altering them, as shown by the under drawings in charcoal on some of the drawings that embody his first thoughts. Unlike other drawings of his series, there is no inscription in takri on the margin, making identification of the scene difficult, since the text is very extensive and there are all kinds of episodes, generally neglected, that Manaku seems to have chosen to illustrate. The series is dense in its visual narration and scenes are treated expansively, with many pictures used to depict the detailed progress of an episode.Only a few drawings of this series have been published. No. 109 illustrated in Goswamy and Fischer, 1992, is from the collection of Dr Jyoti and Nona Datta in Los Angeles, while no. 110 is in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich. For further discussion of the painter and two drawings also at the Rietberg, see the chapter on Manaku by Goswamy and Fischer in Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer and B. N. Goswamy (eds.) with Jorrit Britschgi (project director), Masters of Indian Painting II: 1650-1900, 2011, pp. 641-658, figs. 11 and 11a.
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Thereafter we will store items at Stephen Morris Shipping Ltd., 15 Ockham Drive, Greenford Park, Greenford, UB6 0FD. Telephone +44(0)20 8832 2222. Items will be available to collect from 9am on Friday 10th January.
Please ensure payment has been made prior to collection. This can be done online, bank transfer or in person at our London office - details will be shown on your invoice also. Please note we are unable to accept cash or payments over the phone.
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