AN ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: THE TODI RAGINI OF HINDOL RAGA
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION
Possibly Northern Deccan or Bikaner, Rajasthan, India, ca. 1780

Opaque pigments heightened with gold and silver on paper, the vertical-format composition depicting a scene usually associated with the Todi Ragini of the Hindola Raga, a musical mode supposed to evoke both tenderness and sadness, commonly represented by a young heroine (nayika) in a forest separated from her lover, holding a veena (a traditional Hindustani stringed musical instrument) and offering a floral garland to a black buck as in the present example, here with a peacock to her left and two female deer behind the buck, in the foreground a lotus pond livened by a pair of ducks, in the background a river with a red boat and the entrance to a palace, set within black rules, and gold and red borders, the reverse plain, 26cm x 16.5cm.

Provenance: once part of a private British collection, sold through Maggs in the 1970’s

Dimensions: 26cm x 16.5cm