A painting from a Baramasa series, depicting Radha and Krishna celebrating the Tej festival during the month of Sravan, with female devotees carrying statues of Parvati
Bundi, circa 1780
gouache and gold on paper, red border
287 x 210 mm.
Footnotes:
Provenance
Sotheby's, Fine Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 15th October 1984, lot 77 (illustrated).

For a Bundi painting of the same subject, with a very similar composition, see Sotheby's, Arts of the Islamic World and India, 30th March 2022, lot 59 (which had previously appeared at Sotheby's, Fine Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 15th-16th April 1985, lot 463). There Radha and Krishna are seen twice, embracing amongst the trees in the background, and then in the upper floor of the pavilion, as in our painting.

At the base of the pavilion a group of women are carrying a statue of Parvati as part of the celebrations for the festival of Tej, which is dedicated to the goddess and her union with Shiva, and it also ushers in the monsoon season, in the month of Sravan (late July-late August).

Such paintings derive from the text of the Baramasa (songs of the seasons, or twelve months) written by the 16th Century poet, Keshavdas. A slightly earlier Bundi painting of 1680-1700 depicting the month of Sravan, is in the British Museum (see R. Ahluwalia, Rajput Painting, London 2008, p. 69, no. 35). For a painting depicting Asadh (the month prior to Sravan), attributed to Bundi or Kotah, mid-18th Century, and formerly in the collection of Dr Claus Virch, see Sotheby's New York, Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Works of Art, 16th March 2016, lot 812.
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