AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A DEVI MAHATMYA SERIES: THE GODDESS FIGHTING THE DEMON GENERAL CHAMARA
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION
Kangra, Pahari Hills, Northern India, ca. 1820 - 1840

Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the horizontal composition depicting a typical scene from the Devi Mahatmya, the fourth and penultimate part of the Markandeya Purana, condensing into a single illustration four consequential moments of the battle between the multi-armed Hindu goddess Durga (also known as Mahadevi or Chandika) and the green-skinned demon general Chamara, the asura represented four times, firstly physically assaulting the Goddess' vahana, the lion; then charging against it with an elephant; then trying to attack the Goddess with a trident; and lastly, defeated, with its head chopped off; behind the Devi a group of four soldiers created out of her breath attacking Chamara with arrows and spears, set within white and red rules, and typical Kangra Pahari borders with white rosette scrolls on dark blue ground and red speckles on pink ground, mounted, glazed and framed, the painting 24cm x 33cm, 35.5cm x 45cm including the frame.

Provenance: Private German Collection.

A very similar illustration attributed to the Guler school, circa 1780, was offered at Sotheby's London, 30 March 2022, lot 61. The composition of the present lot shows clear analogies with a number of late 18th and early 19th-century Kangra and Guler paintings portraying the same subject, like the example at Sotheby's and in the collection of the Museum Rietberg in Zurich (acc. no. RVI 1553). The repetitiveness of this subject should not surprise us considering the relevance of the Devi Mahatmya text in the Pahari region.