A LADY SMOKING ON A TERRACE
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION
Chamba, Himachal Pradesh, Northern India, ca. 1800 - 1820

Opaque pigments heightened with gold on wove wasli paper, the vertical composition portraying a young fair-skinned Indian maiden seated on a yellow floorspread with pink blossoms on a terrace at night, holding the mouthpiece of a huqqa (water pipe), her long-sleeved orange dress in bright contrast with the dark background of the night sky, the portrait set within an oval frame with stylised vegetal scrollwork in red against a white ground, the top with a later-added Kangra Pahari border with red wavy lines on a pink ground, 30cm x 19.2cm.

Provenance: purchased in Delhi, India, in March 1971 and in private hands since.