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Lot Essay
The painting illustrates Asavari Ragini, the wife of Megha Raga, as a beautiful woman in a forest accompanied by celestial musicians, one of them a kinnara (with the head of a horse). The visual iconography suggested by Kshemakarna’s verse describes Asavari Ragini as a beautifully dressed and adorned, dark-skinned woman, in a plantain forest, teaching a parrot to talk (Ebeling, 1973, p.78). The raga is said to be sung by kinnaras and gods at the break of dawn.
This illustrated series is the earliest known ragamala based on Kshemakarna’s Sanskrit text. Kshemakarna was a court priest in the 16th century at Rewa in Madhya Pradesh. Kshemakarna’s text, variously dated to 1509 or 1570, had a pivotal influence on early ragamala painting. It describes the ragamala family comprising six principal ragas, with their five or six raginis (wives), and eight or nine ragaputras (sons of ragas). The paintings closely follow the descriptions in the accompanying text. Previously attributed to the Deccan, this ragamala series is now more commonly catalogued as sub-imperial or ‘popular Mughal’. Although not successfully attributed to any particular court or patron, it has been suggested that the paintings are closely related in style to the work of artists who were discharged from Emperor Akbar’s library when his son Jahangir came to the throne in 1605 (Glynn, Skelton, Dallapiccola, London, 2011, p.24).
For further reading on this ragamala set, see “Iconographic Remarks on Some Folios of the Oldest Illustrated Kshemakarna Ragamala”, in Bautze, 1999, pp.155-62 and Habighorst, 2006.
Another folio from the same manuscript is in the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. 2001.112). Other folios have sold at auction recently in these Rooms, 25 October 2018, lot 169; 25 May 2017, lots 1, 2; Bonhams, New York, 13 March 2017, lot 3141; and Christie’s, New York, 31 March 2005, lot 226. For two other folios from the same ragamala series in this sale, see lots 134 and 135.
This illustrated series is the earliest known ragamala based on Kshemakarna’s Sanskrit text. Kshemakarna was a court priest in the 16th century at Rewa in Madhya Pradesh. Kshemakarna’s text, variously dated to 1509 or 1570, had a pivotal influence on early ragamala painting. It describes the ragamala family comprising six principal ragas, with their five or six raginis (wives), and eight or nine ragaputras (sons of ragas). The paintings closely follow the descriptions in the accompanying text. Previously attributed to the Deccan, this ragamala series is now more commonly catalogued as sub-imperial or ‘popular Mughal’. Although not successfully attributed to any particular court or patron, it has been suggested that the paintings are closely related in style to the work of artists who were discharged from Emperor Akbar’s library when his son Jahangir came to the throne in 1605 (Glynn, Skelton, Dallapiccola, London, 2011, p.24).
For further reading on this ragamala set, see “Iconographic Remarks on Some Folios of the Oldest Illustrated Kshemakarna Ragamala”, in Bautze, 1999, pp.155-62 and Habighorst, 2006.
Another folio from the same manuscript is in the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. no. 2001.112). Other folios have sold at auction recently in these Rooms, 25 October 2018, lot 169; 25 May 2017, lots 1, 2; Bonhams, New York, 13 March 2017, lot 3141; and Christie’s, New York, 31 March 2005, lot 226. For two other folios from the same ragamala series in this sale, see lots 134 and 135.