AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A RAGAMALA SERIES: VASANTI RAGINI
PROPERTY FROM A LONDON PRIVATE COLLECTION
Possibly Bikaner, Rajasthan, North-Western India, ca. 1780 - 1800

Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the vertical composition depicting a scene traditionally associated with the Vasanti Ragini, a ragamala (musical mode) celebrating the advent of spring and the joy it brings, in the centre an Indian princess wearing floral brocaded pajama trousers and a diaphanous vest, standing by a plum blossom tree in full bloom (the traditional harbinger of spring in the Kangra Valley and other regions of the North of India), smoking a huqqa in front of a pond with white ducklings, set within black and white rules, pasted onto an album page with vegetal meanders in gold on a pink ground, mounted, glazed, and framed, the painting 15.7cm x 22.5cm, 30cm x 39.2cm including the frame.