A MINIATURE PAINTING DEPICTING A LOVESICK LADY WITH HER ATTENDANTS, NORTH INDIA, 18TH-EARLY 19TH CENTURY

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A MINIATURE PAINTING DEPICTING A LOVESICK LADY WITH HER ATTENDANTS, NORTH INDIA, 18TH-EARLY 19TH CENTURY Ink, gouache, and gold on paper. Finely painted, depicting a despondent woman reclining upon a couch in a palace pavilion amid lush gardens, attended by two maidens, one of whom attempts to comfort her while the other fans her as she languishes in separation from her beloved. Dimensions: Size 28.4 x 20.8 cm The languishing heroine attended by her companions evokes the virahini nayika, the woman afflicted by separation from her beloved, a recurrent subject in Indian court painting. Reclining with closed eyes, one arm raised above her head, she appears absorbed in an anguish that the attentions of her companions cannot dispel. The delicately patterned textiles and sheltered pavilion provide an intimate setting for this expression of longing. The scene finds a literary parallel in Keshavdas’s Rasikapriya (‘The Connoisseur’s Delight’), composed in 1591, whose eighth canto describes ten states of distress arising from separation, progressing from yearning to death. The heroine’s languid posture and the attendant’s cooling fan may evoke the later conditions of vyadhi (‘sickness’) or jadata (‘stupor’). The theme also resonates with the love of Radha and Krishna, celebrated in Jayadeva’s twelfth-century Gita Govinda, in which separation and reconciliation acquire both emotional and devotional significance. Although the present heroine cannot securely be identified as Radha, her portrayal draws upon a visual language through which the suffering of the earthly lover could also suggest the devotee’s longing for the divine. Literature comparison: Compare a closely related Guler painting depicting a Nayika by a master of the first generation after Manaku and Nainsukh, dated circa 1785, in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich, inventory number RVI 2112. Compare a related painting depicting a lovesick lady, attributed to Sajnu and workshop, India, Mandi, dated 1810-1820, 29.4 x 21.3 cm, illustrated in Francesca Galloway, Rajput Paintings from the Ludwig Habighorst Collection, 2019, p. 78, no. 19. Compare a related earlier painting depicting Radha longing for Krishna, by Hamid Ruknuddin, India, Rajasthan, dated 1685, 18.9 x 13.3 cm, in the San Diego Museum of Art, accession number 1990.787.

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