"Madhava Ragaputra: A Nobleman Dancing to the Music of Two Ladies" Folio from a Ragamala (Garland of Melodies)

An elegant nobleman, wearing a Mughal­style costume, scarf, and turban, dances at the
center of this picture. He is dancing to the music provided by two women, also wearing Mughal-
style costumes, and playing a stringed instrument (a sarod?) and a drum. The three figures
perform beside a seventeenth century­style, Pahari “lollipop” tree, on a grassy knoll beneath a
narrow strip of blue and white sky. The background color is dark green, the same background
color used in all ragamala paintings from the Raga Bhairava family. (1)
This handsome painting is probably from the same dispersed ragamala series as the three
Kahlur ragamala paintings of approximately the same date and style now in the San Diego
Museum of Art, formerly in the collection of Edwin Binney 3rd. (2) The borders are the same,
although the dimensions differ somewhat. Although the present painting is not labelled on the
front or back, Martin Lerner has identified the subject as Madhava Ragaputra, a member of the
Raga Bhairava family. Another candidate is Brahmarananda Ragaputra, although Lerner
deems this identification less likely. (3)
Just as raginis are considered the wives of masculine ragas, so ragaputras are considered
the sons of ragas. For additional information about the ancient, yet difficult ragamala
classification of Indian classical music and painting, see cat. no. 7.
The series to which this painting once belonged was made in the kingdom of Kahlur, often
called Bilaspur for its capital city of the same name, which was founded only in the year 1654.
From that time until about 1780, Kahlur flourished. With a surfeit of excess money, the ruling
princes must have patronized imported musicians, singers, and dancing girls. This spate of
expensive, musical patronage would help to explain the large number of ragamala series that
were produced in Kahlur during those same years. (4)
(1) Waldschmidt and Waldschmidt 1967, pg. 149
(2) Archer 1973, Vol. I, nos. 8i­8iii. For four other paintings from the same series, see Alice
N. Heeramaneck, Masterpieces of Indian Painting (Verona: A. Mondadore Editore,
1984), pg. 97.
(3) Lerner 1984, pg. 164
(4) Archer 1973, Vol. I, pg. 226

Inscription: Inscribed on the reverse with two lines in Panjabi written in takri script: “Raga Madhava / 23” as well as the number “23” written above; notated with two stamps with European figures in black ink

Ex Collection: Douglas Barrett; Spink, 1980?

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts—The Kronos Collections," June 13–September 11, 2016.

Martin Lerner. The Flame and the Lotus: Indian and Southeast Asian Art from the Kronos Collections. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984, pp. 164–65, cat. no. 62.