A Lady Looks into the Mirror on a White Terrace
Date Late 18th century
Period 1750-1850, 18th century
Origin India, Mughal
Dimension 27 x 18.2 cm (10⁵/₈ x 7¹/₈ inches)
A raga (melody) is a style of Indian music, consisting of five, six or seven notes distributed over the octave scale in a particular arrangement. The paintings are illustrations of poems, which visually convey the mood of Raga music and each raga is usually personified by a hero and a heroine (nayaka and nayika), together with specific Hindu deities attached with the raga (Pratapaditya, p. 7). The act of a lady looking in a mirror and applying make-up or wearing jewelry is a popular scene in Mughal ragamala paintings, and in particular the scene evokes the story of the Vilavala Ragini.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, possesses an 18th century Vilavala Ragini painting, which is attributed to Bundi, Rajasthan (Accession Number 67.798). Although stylistically divergent to our example, it appears related in its iconography, and offers an example of a typical composition of this story: a lady sits amongst her maidens on a terrace and for the purpose of meeting her beloved she is putting on her jewels. However, unlike the Boston example, the elongated figures of the maidens, coupled with their fine facial features, small rosebud lips, and shading around their hair and jawlines, is illustrative of provincial Mughal painting of the late 18th century (Losty, p. 83). The painting typifies the proclivity 18th century artists seem to exhibit for illustrating either Hindu or Islamic sources.
Date: Late 18th century
Period: 1750-1850, 18th century
Origin: India, Mughal
Dimension: 27 x 18.2 cm (10⁵/₈ x 7¹/₈ inches)
Provenance: Private European Collection, exhibited in Paris, 1973.
Literature: Pratapaditya, P. Ragamala Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, The Meriden Gravure Co., 1969.
Losty, J.P. ‘Painting at Murshidabad 1750-1820’, in, N. Das and R. Lleewllyn-Jones, (eds.), Murshidabad: Forgotten Capital of Bengal, Mumbai, Marg, 2013, pp. 82-105.
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