Hugo Vilfred Pedersen (Danish, 1870-1959)
Head Study of a Sikh bodyguard to the Maharajah of Burdwan
oil on canvas, signed upper right
39.5 x 27 cm.
Footnotes:
Provenance
With Hallis & Co., Fine Art Dealers, Main Street, Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), South Africa.
Private collection, South Africa.

For a very similar composition, of almost the same size, a tightly-framed portrait study of a Sikh bodyguard of the Maharajah of Burdwan, see the sale in these rooms, Islamic and Indian Art, 25th October 2022, lot 157. For a Sikh figure wearing a different coloured turban, but in a similar composition, see Islamic and Indian Art Online Sale, 4th-18th June 2019, lot 85. A similar portrait of the sitter in our painting was with Bruun Rasmussen, Denmark, 27th September 2001, lot 1109.

A group of studies by Pedersen, including two of the same sitter once again, was at Sotheby's, Exotica: East Meets West, 1500-1900, 25th May 2005, lot 142: an oil sketch, inscribed Fyrstelivtjener i Burdwan (portrait of a servant at Burdwan); and a charcoal study, inscribed Burdwan India, Livvagt Sergeant.
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