Khambavati Ragini of Malkos Raga, from a series commissioned by Raiji Moti Ram of Malpura and illustrated by the painter Jai Kishan
Malpura, circa 1756-57
gouache and gold on paper, panel at top with four lines of text in nagari script in gold on a black ground, red floral inner border, faded pink outer border
395 x 290 mm.
Footnotes:
This lot is from the only known ragamala series executed at Malpura, a small thikana fifty miles southwest of Jaipur. The illustration of Asvari ragini from the series, formerly in the collection of Eric Schroeder of Cambridge, MA, and now in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, bears a colophon with the name of the artist Jai Kishan and the date VS 1813/AD 1756-57. This was translated by W. G. Archer and reads 'The signed paintings of Jai Kishan of Malpura. Painted for Raiji Moti Ram of Malpura, dated Samvat 1813'. Others are in the collections of Edwin Binney III, San Diego, the Freer Art Gallery, Washington, DC, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. For comparison see E. Binney, Rajput Paintings from the collection of Edwin Binney III, Portland, Oregon 1968, no. 36; K. Ebeling, Ragamala Painting, Basel 1973, no. 93, col. pl. 22.

For an example depicting Hindol raga, with the same dull pink outer border as our painting, and numbered in the upper left corner, see Sotheby's, Arts of the Islamic World and India, 26th April 2023, lot 59.
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