Opaque Pigment on paper
Mewar, India
c. 1700 – 1710
Provenance:
Christie’s, New York, 19March, 2014, Lot 1099.
Inscribed in Nagari within a yellow panel in the upper border.
Bala[kanda]. Rama[yana ro] patra. 47. Pache raja dasaratha. Vamadeva. Jabali. Vashishta. Ina ri puja kare………ma…….khi ke vala ga. Asvamedha karo.
Page 47 of the first book of the Ramayana. Then Raja Dasharatha worshipped sages Vamadeva, Jabali and Vashishta. Hence began the horse sacrifice.
This large series has now been widely dispersed within private and museum collections worldwide. For a similar page depicting the abduction of Sita see the LACMA collection, Museum Number M86.345.3. A page from the same series depicting Rama, Lakshmana and their father on their way back from Mithila, sold at Sotheby’s New York, 16/17 March 1988, lot 435. A page from the same series were also sold at Christie’s, New York, 16 September 2014, lot 311. The assumed date of these pages varies widely between scholars, from as early as 1640 to as late as 1720, despite the work being most recently dated to 1640, we have followed the more conservative date of 1700 -1710.