AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A KRISHNA LILA SERIES: CLAMOR AT THE PALACE
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE GERMAN COLLECTION
Jaipur, Rajasthan, North-Western India, ca. 1820 - 1840

Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the horizontal composition depicting a scene from a Krishna Lila series, marked as number 11 in the cusped yellow cartouche on the lower-right corner, the yellow epigraphic cartouche at the top filled with poetic love couplets of black ink Braj Bhasha dialect, the one at the bottom filled with an explanation of the above couplets in Rajasthani dialect, mounted on cardboard, glazed and framed, 27.5cm x 39cm excluding the frame.

This illustration comes from the same collection and early 19th-century Rajasthani Krishna Lila series already presented in our last sale, 16 April 2021. It depicts two Vaishnava Rajput noblemen, both wearing a long North Indian white muslin shalwaar kamiz with gold-embroidered bright orange and green trousers and similar turbans, in red and orange. The man on the left is pointing at the nayika's sakhi (confidante), standing on the threshold of the palace and pulling her shawl closer to her face, almost in an attempt to hide from sight. The two female attendants in the lower-left corner looking both intrigued and alarmed; their hands giving away their emotions and pointing at the group of men in front of them.