Credit Line:Promised Gift of the Kronos Collections, 2015
Accession Number:SL.21.2016.1.55
In this fine drawing ___, the elephant; ___, the horse; ___, the demon; and Garuda, the vehicle of the Lord; pay homage to the fourarmed Vishnu, who is identified by the attributes he holds in his hands: a lotus flower, a mace, a discus, and a conch shell. Although the elephant’s body is beautifully modelled along its contours, this three dimensional shading does not interfere with the essentially two dimensional nature of Manaku’s spatially shallow conception (For the artist Manaku, see also cat. nos. 66 and 74.). The socalled ‘Small Guler Bhagavata Purana’ Series was never entirely completed. But its earlier finished paintings (see cat. no. 66), as well as its later preparatory drawings are among the most important works in Indian painting. Originally, the Series was conceived to comprise several hundred paintings. It is not known how many finished paintings were actually completed. But it appears that only about 50 finished paintings have survived (the largest number in the Lahore Museum and the Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute in Udaipur), as well as about an equal number of preparatory drawings, depicting incidents in the same very long, yet holy, text. The preparatory drawings vary widely in quality. But the finest among them, including this sheet, “are brilliant in their conception and impeccably executed.” (1) For a finished painting from the socalled ‘Small Guler Bhagavata Purana’ Series, see cat. no. 66. 67. SK.062 (1) Milo C. Beach, Eberhard Fischer, and B.N. Goswamy, eds., 2011, pg. 651
Inscription: Inscribed on the front along the top border in black ink in Panjabi with a one-line caption written in takri script and the number “38”(?)
Subash Kapoor 2006? (Old stock from his father)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Divine Pleasures: Painting from India's Rajput Courts—The Kronos Collections," June 13–September 11, 2016.
The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world.