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

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

Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum

A catalogue of the Ashmolean’s collection of Indian art by J. C. Harle and Andrew Topsfield (published Oxford, 1987).

Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum by J. C. Harle and Andrew Topsfield

Publications online: 143 objects

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A lady awaiting her lover in a grove, illustrating the musical mode Kamodani Ragini

  • Literature notes

    During the 17th and 18th centuries the local styles of painting at the semi-independent Rajput courts of Rajasthan, Central India and the Punjab Hills were strongly influenced by the imperial Mughal School. But in spite of the new popularity of portraiture, hunting scenes and other Mughal genres, the earlier tradition of poetical and devotional manuscript illustration also continued to flourish. The most common theme was rāgamālā, the representation of musical modes (rāgas) were endowed with families of “wives” (rāgiṇīs) and, in some systems, “sons” (putras) as well. Most rāgamālās comprise 36 rāgas and rāginīs, but longer series are not uncommon. The conventional pictorial subjects are usually of ladies and princes seen in palaces or flowering groves, with a prevailing mood of erotic longing or fulfilment.

    In this page Kamodanī rāginī is depicted, according to a tradition followed at the neighbouring courts of Bundhi and Kotah in south-east Rajasthan, as a lady preparing for a lover’s tryst in a grove. According to the Sanskrit verses inscribed on the wide red border, she stretches out her lotus-like hand to collect the flowers, applied musk to her forehead, sits on a seat of flowers and has “a soft and fair body”. A young girl, like the apsaras Ra[ṁ]bha, dwelling in the heavenly realm, she is to be sung during the third watch of the day in the cold season, from the note Madhyama”. It belongs to a rāgamālā of 36 pages which has been identified by Ebeling as a short version deriving from a huge series of 240 rāga pictures painted at Kotah in 1768, most of which are in the Sarasvatī Bhavan Library, Udaipur. Other pages from the present series are in the National Museum, New Delhi.
  • Details

    Series
    Garland of Ragas
    Associated place
    AsiaIndiawest IndiaRajasthansouth Rajasthan Bundi (probable place of creation)
    AsiaIndiawest IndiaRajasthansouth Rajasthan Kota (possible place of creation)
    Date
    c. 1770
    Material and technique
    gouache with gold and silver on paper
    Dimensions
    mount 55.5 x 40.4 cm (height x width)
    painting with border 36.3 x 25.6 cm (height x width)
    painting 21 x 12.5 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by Lord Somervell, 1958.
    Accession no.
    EA1958.148
  • Further reading

    Harle, J. C., and Andrew Topsfield, Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1987), no. 88 on pp. 79-80, pp. 79 & 93, pl. 16 (colour) & p. 80

    Rawson, Philip, Indian Painting (Paris: P. Tisné and New York: Universe Books, 1961), illus. 139

Glossary

Ragini

  • Ragini

    Raga (feminine ragini) are musical modes, often represented by compositions of ladies, lovers, warriors, animals or gods, in series of Ragamala ('Garland of Ragas') paintings, a very popular artistic genre in north India and the Deccan c. 1500 - 1800.

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.

 

Publications online

  • Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum by J. C. Harle and Andrew Topsfield

    Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum

    During the 17th and 18th centuries the local styles of painting at the semi-independent Rajput courts of Rajasthan, Central India and the Punjab Hills were strongly influenced by the imperial Mughal School. But in spite of the new popularity of portraiture, hunting scenes and other Mughal genres, the earlier tradition of poetical and devotional manuscript illustration also continued to flourish. The most common theme was rāgamālā, the representation of musical modes (rāgas) were endowed with families of “wives” (rāgiṇīs) and, in some systems, “sons” (putras) as well. Most rāgamālās comprise 36 rāgas and rāginīs, but longer series are not uncommon. The conventional pictorial subjects are usually of ladies and princes seen in palaces or flowering groves, with a prevailing mood of erotic longing or fulfilment.

    In this page Kamodanī rāginī is depicted, according to a tradition followed at the neighbouring courts of Bundhi and Kotah in south-east Rajasthan, as a lady preparing for a lover’s tryst in a grove. According to the Sanskrit verses inscribed on the wide red border, she stretches out her lotus-like hand to collect the flowers, applied musk to her forehead, sits on a seat of flowers and has “a soft and fair body”. A young girl, like the apsaras Ra[ṁ]bha, dwelling in the heavenly realm, she is to be sung during the third watch of the day in the cold season, from the note Madhyama”. It belongs to a rāgamālā of 36 pages which has been identified by Ebeling as a short version deriving from a huge series of 240 rāga pictures painted at Kotah in 1768, most of which are in the Sarasvatī Bhavan Library, Udaipur. Other pages from the present series are in the National Museum, New Delhi.
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