AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A RAGAMALA SERIES: THE ASAVARI RAGINI OF SHRI RAGA
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION
Possibly Sirohi, Rajasthan, North-Western India, late 17th - early 18th century

Opaque pigments heightened with gold on wove paper, the vertical-format composition depicting a maiden seated at the top of a mountain surrounded by two peacocks, a gazelle, and a buck, all animals coming in pairs emphasising the loneliness and melancholy of the ragini, her sole companion the snake in her right hand, water lotas and ewers in the foreground, the scene set within white rules and bright red borders, an inscription in black ink Devanagari script at the top reading Asavari, the reverse with 18ll. of black ink Devanagari script with cropped and incomplete sentences, mounted on white cardboard, the folio 20.3cm x 15.5cm.

Provenance: once part of a private French collection.

For an analogous example of Sirohi school ragamala, following the same structural composition and profile portrait of the present lot, please see the Asavari Ragini at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (acc. no. 1996-120-11).