AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A RAMAYANA SERIES


MEWAR, 1700-1710Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; numbered '58' from Book III of the Tulsi Ramayan. Folio: 10 5/8 x 16 3/4 in. (27 x 42.5 cm)
|Utterly despondent at the task of banishing his favored son and heir ahead of him, King Dasharatha awaits the arrival of Rama and his bother Lakshmana. Other folios from this vast Ramayana series can be found in the Cleveland Museum of Art (2018.142) and the Cincinnati Art Museum (Walker & Smart, Pride of the Princes, Cincinnati, 1985, no.28). Another is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M86.345.3), formerly in the Paul Walter Collection (see P. Pal, The Classical Tradition in Rajput Paintings, Los Angeles 1978, pp.100-1, no.27). Ten pages are in the Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena. Eleven more are in the Ducrot Collection (Ducrot, Four Centuries of Rajput Painting, Torino, 2009, pp.43-8, nos.ME 18-ME 28). A further page from this series is published in Hussein-Okada, Ramayana by Valmiki: illustrated with Indian painting from the 16th to the 19th century, Edition Diane de Selliers, 2011, p.29. And six were sold at Bonhams, New York, 19 March 2012, lots 1205 & 1206, and 17 March 2014, lots 118-21. Provenance Private Collection, California