A WHITE-CLAD SADHU MEDITATING
Pahari Provincial School, possibly Nurpur, Himachal Pradesh, Northern India, 18th century

Opaque pigments heightened with little gold on paper, the small horizontal composition depicting a white-clad hermit or sadhu in meditation seated on a river bank, holding a mala rosary necklace with rudraksha beads, his encrusted bazuband and necklace indicating a high-class status, possibly a ruler who renounced of his worldly possessions (sannyasin), completing the scene a pair of white egrets and tigers on the river banks behind him, and fish among the lotus flowers in the river in the foreground, mounted, glazed and framed, the painting 12cm x 15.8cm, 29.5cm x 35cm including the frame.