Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Indian Paintings from the Simon Digby Collection

(from 1st Oct 2013 until 5th Jan 2014)

Explore the recent acquisition of a rich and unusual collection of Indian paintings and manuscript pages.

Detail of Noblemen in durbar, Rajasthan, 18th century (Museum no: EA2012.225)
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The estranged nayika

  • Description

    Composed by the court poet Keshav Das in 1591, the Rasikapriya is a Hindi poetical treatise on the classification of idealised types of male and female lovers (nayakas and nayikas) and their emotions and interactions. The princely nayaka figure is often shown blue-skinned like the amorous god Krishna. Here the sakhi, the companion and confidante of the nayika, acts as a go-between and brings the wayward nayaka before his lady’s chamber. She evidently tells him of the nayika’s suffering in separation from him and her pain at his infidelities. The wrathful nayika sits brooding within her palace chamber. As in other pages from this series, a flag-bearing makara (crocodile) finial, emblematic of the love-god Kama, projects from the palace wall, and a monkey looks on from a ledge above.

  • Details

    Series
    The Rasikapriya of Keshav Das
    Associated place
    AsiaIndiacentral IndiaMadhya Pradesh Malwa (place of creation)
    Date
    c. 1640
    Material and technique
    gouache on paper
    Dimensions
    20.7 x 18.1 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by the Simon Digby Memorial Charity, 2012.
    Accession no.
    EA2012.200

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Notice

Objects from past exhibitions may have now returned to our stores or a lender. Click into an individual object record to confirm whether or not an object is currently on display. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis, so please contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular Eastern Art object.

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