A RAJPUT PRINCE RECEIVING WATER FROM VILLAGE GIRLS AT A WELL
Bikaner, Rajasthan, North-Western India, 18th century

Opaque pigments and gold on paper, the vertical composition depicting a popular scene in 18th-century Mughal and Rajput paintings featuring a group of village ladies at a well, all dressed in their colourful choli ghagras (top and skirts) and fully bejewelled with several strings of pearls, filling up gold lotas (water containers), the ladies in the foreground on the right ready to leave to bring back the water to the village with filled lotas resting over their heads, the group of ladies standing by the well distracted by the arrival of a Rajput prince, wearing a green turban and robe, begging for some water which is immediately offered by a girl standing right next to him wearing the most striking ghagra with pink roses against a gold ground, the back with a note in pencil reading Mohna Rani, 22cm x 15.5cm.

Several versions of this exact scene have been painted in India throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Discussing the composition of two comparable works, Falk suggests the scene may derive from two different literary sources: firstly, a poem by Muhammad Akram written in 1658 that tells the story of two lovers named Shahid and Wafa, and secondly, the story of Mohana Rani and Chel Batao, the latter suggested by Coomaraswamy (T. Falk and M. Archer, Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, 1981, no.195, pp.122 - 3; see also T. Falk in Colnaghi, Paintings from Mughal India, 1979, no. 26, pp.56 - 7).

The V&A Museum holds a similar painting in their collection, attributed to the school of Murshidabad and dating ca. 1760 (acc. no. IS.42-1961). The scene is almost identical to ours, the main difference lies in the characterisation of the subjects, which in our case suggests stronger links with Rajput schools of paintings. Two further comparable examples were successfully sold at Sotheby's, 21 March 2012, lot 221 (New York), and 22 April 2015, lot 150 (London).

Dimensions: 22cm x 15.5cm