A PENSIVE LADY SMOKING A HUQQA IN THE WILDERNESS
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION
Mughal Style, possibly Northern India or Deccan, late 18th - 19th century

Opaque pigments, ink, and gold on paper, the small vertical-format composition possibly inspired by a Ragamala series and depicting a lady with a pensive and melancholic look holding a branch of the willow tree behind her with one hand and the mouthpiece of a huqqa pipe on the other, her golden trousers embroidered with small rose buds and long shawl covering her head and torso in line with 18th-century Mughal fashion canons, set within gold, black, and white rules, pasted onto off-white paper borders, the reverse plain except for Indian numerical annotations, 22.5cm x 13.5cm.

Provenance: once part of a private American collection