Asian Art in London 2026: A Mystical Menagerie

Inscribed in Devanagari ‘8’ [Folio 8]

Further inscribed in Devanagari (in vernacular Pahari) ‘nayeka agyata jovana puchadi hoyi apni sasu ki je pati rati no kya sasuye karde han ta usadi sasu hasadi bhai’

‘The heroine of unknowing youth asks her mother-in-law: ‘What does my husband do at night?’ At this, the mother-in-law bursts into laughter.’

Inscribed in Braj ‘Atha agyata yovana lakshanam. apne tana mai jovana agama jo Nahin Janata bala tahi kahata agyata yovana Sundara guno rasala. Dhai so jadu kai dhai kahyo kahun dhai kai puchiye ka tain thai hai. Baithi rahau nihachinta kaha suni meri sabe sudhi bhuli gai hai. Sundara dekhi derati inhe upaji uara manjha upadhi nahi hai. Kanchi kali si hi kali paron ab chhati supari si aaju bhai hai. 20.’

‘The description of the Unknowing Youth (Agyata Yovana). A girl who does not yet know the ways of youth is called an ‘unaware maiden’—young, tender, endowed with beauty and full of sweetness. She begins to speak but then stops halfway, leaving her words unfinished. She remains unaware, lost in herself, having forgotten all attentiveness. Youth has quietly come upon her. Once like a tender flower-bud, she has now ripened; her waist is slender as a fresh shoot, her breasts rounded like betel-nuts. [verse] 20.’

LITERATURE: 

For other pages from the same series see 

J. P. Losty, A Mystical Realm of Love: Pahari Paintings from the Eva and Konrad Seitz Collection (London: Francesca Galloway, 2017).

This folio is from the Sundar Shringar, a poetic text concerned with the moods of love and the classification of literary heroes and heroines (nayaka-nayika bheda), which explores much of the same material as Keshav Das’s Rasikapriya and Bhanudatta’s Sanskrit Rasamanjari. Its author, Sundar Das (d. 1689), states in his introduction that the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan conferred on him the titles kaviraya “prince among poets” and subsequently mahakaviraya “poet laureate”.

The series is associated with the Guler atelier and the artistic legacy of the descendants of Nainsukh and Manaku, whose family workshop contributed significantly to the development of Pahari miniature painting. Losty regards it as contemporary with, or possibly slightly later than, three other poetic series produced by the sons of Nainsukh and Manaku: Bihari’s Satsai, the Ragamala and the Baramasa, circa 1780–85. The Sundar Shringar employs the same female type as these. The compositions are consistently well balanced, and the artist has given careful thought to adapting to a horizontal format a subject which at this date was normally treated in an upright one. The format may be a deliberate reference to the earlier Basohli/Nurpur Rasamanjari series, which placed hero, heroine and companions within a landscape-format pavilion, and suggests that Nainsukh and his family workshop may have known those sets in the royal collection at Basohli. The painters of the Sundar Shringar are 'consistently inventive': they transpose the landscape settings of the Gita Govinda of circa 1765–70, in which Krishna and Radha pass through successive stages of passion, into a more urban and architectural idiom.

The present folio is set on a domestic terrace. At left stands a white-walled building with a wooden roof, its window closed by a finely striped blind of red, green and black. A pink terrace hatched in a lattice pattern runs diagonally towards the garden. A young woman, standing at its edge, addresses an elderly woman in a yellow shawl and indigo skirt, who is seated on a low red platform with one knee drawn up. The younger woman wears an orange-red veil and a sheer orange skirt with a golden hem, together with necklaces and earrings. She holds up one breast with her left hand while extending the other arm in a declamatory gesture. Her face is rendered in profile with a long, arched eye. The seated woman is characterised by a lined face, grey hair and thin, bangled arms. Two clay pots at lower left anchor the foreground. The older woman is the heroine’s mother-in-law, as the inscription on the reverse confirms.

The composition is split vertically by the white wall which separates the architectural left from the lush greenery of the open right. The division between the two women coincides with the point at which the end of the wall meets the terrace, so that their exchange mediates between interior and exterior. On the right, a slender tree with softly stippled, rounded clusters of foliage rises against a flat green field and a narrow band of pale blue sky. A reddish creeper winds around the trunk, a motif conventionally associated with amorous attachment. The palette is restrained: a few saturated notes of orange, red and yellow are set against white, green and pink. The dark blue border frames the scene as a self-contained domestic episode.

This folio bears close comparison to two pages from the same series published in

J. P. Losty, A Mystical Realm of Love: Pahari Paintings from the Eva and Konrad Seitz Collection (London: Francesca Galloway, 2017). All three share the same landscape format and a plain dark blue surround. The folio in which the parakiya nayika conceals the marks of love from her friend, is the closest in sentiment. Like the present folio, it presents a dialogue between two women articulated through gesture: a hand raised to the face in one, a pointing finger in the other. The costume and ornament are consistent in both. Each woman wears pearl earrings and a nath, together with a transparent veil with a gold border, and the draping of the garments is handled in the same manner. The architecture is also comparable in its simplicity to the other folio published by Losty. the pavilion has a plain grey rear wall, while here the pavilion is replaced by a plain building with a closed window. In both, the green ground beyond the building is left as an open, unbroken field.

The series is now widely dispersed. Sotheby’s notes record that at least twenty-one folios from the Royal Library of Mandi appeared in its New York sales between 2005 and 2008 (1 April 2005, lots 110–113; 20 September 2005, lots 106–109; 29 March 2006, lots 149–152; 19 September 2006, lots 1–5; 19 March 2008, lots 205–208), with further folios offered on 19 September 2008. Related folios have also been offered at Bonhams and Christie’s, and a related painting, attributed to Nainsukh, shows the poet Sundar Das before Shah Jahan, 

is now in the collection of  the Freer Gallery, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, F2017.13.4, Interestingly this painting is also listed with a Provenance of the Raja of Mandi and Sotheby’s London, 14 December 1987, lot 87. An inscription on the first page of the manuscript confirms that the manuscript formed part of the Mandi Court library by the reign of Raja Vijay or Bijai Sen, the 16th Raja of Mandi, who was born in 1846 and reigned from 1851-1902. It is unclear however, when the series first moved to the Mandi court. 

There is a striking similarity between the present series and the famous Tehri Garhwal Gita Govinda, which is rendered in the same exquisite palette and delicate style. The refinement of the present group suggests that the artist was at least aware of the other series and may have worked in that court atelier during the same period. Losty states ‘the spirit of Nainsukh pervades paintings from the series in their formal perfection and tranquility.’ (Losty, p.292.) He further suggests that the landscape format of the series may pay homage to the earlier Basohli or Nurpur Rasamanjari set which follows the same format.

For other illustrations from the same series see Sotheby’s New York, April 1, 2005, lots 110-113; September 20, 2005, lots 106-109; March 29, 2006, lots 149-152; September 19, 2006, lots 1-5, March 19, 2008, lots 205-208 and September 19, 2008, lots 201-204.