A PREPARATORY STENCIL SKETCH WITH OVERLAPPING HORSE DESIGN
Mughal India, 18th century

A PREPARATORY STENCIL SKETCH WITH OVERLAPPING HORSE DESIGN
Mughal India, 18th century

Black ink and pencil on paper, finely tracing the pin-pricked stencilled outlines of six jumping horses, their bodies overlapping and creating a fantastical "impossible construction" acting as a precursor to 19th-century Western Surrealist art and Escher's sketches, the horses' tail, hoof, and other details rendered free-hand, in a cream mount, the verso with an old Christie’s London numbered sticker and barcode, the folio 9.3cm x 18cm, 16cm x 23.7cm including the mount.

Dimensions: the folio 9.3cm x 18cm, 16cm x 23.7cm including the mount