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"Damayanti, Lost in Her Thoughts, While Everyone Else Sleeps," Folio from an unidentified NalaDamayanti
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Title:"Damayanti, Lost in Her Thoughts, While Everyone Else Sleeps," Folio from an unidentified NalaDamayanti
Date:ca. 1785
Medium:Opaque watercolor, gold and silver on paper
Dimensions:Page: H. 8 3/4 in. (22.2 cm) W. 12 5/8 in. (32.1 cm) Painting: H. 8 in. (20.3 cm) W. 12 in. (30.5 cm)
Classification:Codices
Credit Line:Promised Gift of the Kronos Collections, 2015
Accession Number:SL.21.2016.1.74
The high adventure yarn involving the lovers Nala and Damayanti is one of the more popular stories derived from the cornucopia of Indian legend. Nala, king of Nisadho, and Damayanti, the beautiful daughter of the king of Vidarbha, live together in wedded bliss for many years. But one day Nala is inhabited body and soul by an evil demon. After this shocking intervention, the two lovers quarrel, are separated, and endure many horrific adventures. But ultimately they are reunited. Nala is restored to his old self, and the story ends happily. This turbulent adventure was recounted in one section of the Mahabharata (“The Great War of the Bharatas”), Hinduism’s epic text. It was also detailed in the Kathasaritsagara (“Ocean of Stories”), and then again, most famously, in the Naisadhacarita by Sriharsa, an epic poem in Sanskrit (12th century) comprising more than 20,000 verses devoted to the Nala- Damayanti story. Illustrated series devoted to Sriharsa’s text were produced as well, most notably the famous, but never fully completed, NalaDamayanti Series made for Maharaja Sansar Chand of Kangra in the early nineteenth century. This Series originally comprised some 112 folios. 47 fully colored paintings from the Series once belonged to Maharaja Karan Singh of Jammu and Kashmir; they are now in the Amar Mahal Museum and Library, Jammu. (1) An additional 48 finished, highly detailed yet mostly uncolored underdrawings for the Series, completing the portion owned by Karan Singh, once belonged to Ananda Coomaraswamy. 29 of these underdrawings are now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (2) Other underdrawings from the same group are at present scattered in museum collections throughout America. Another 110 sketchy, sanguine preparatory drawings for the Series are now in the collection of the National Museum, New Delhi. Damayanti, Lost in Her Thoughts, While Everyone Else Sleeps In this fine painting from a different, yet unidentified NalaDamayanti set, Damayanti is depicted reclining on her bed in a chamber on a palace rooftop. It is the middle of the night, as the starfilled sky indicates. Damayanti’s maidservants have fallen asleep, and the women’s various candles, whether freestanding or contained beneath glass covers, have sputtered and died. Yet Damayanti can not sleep. She has sent messengers to Nala, as well as to the gods, who are pursuing her. All that is left for her to do is wait, anxiously, for the morning, when the allimportant decision about the identity of her future spouse will be made. With its disparate light sources and spatial complexity, this picture suggests the unhinged intensity of Damayanti’s thoughts. For another depiction of this incident, see B.N. Goswamy 1975, pl. 23. (1) See B.N.Goswamy, Pahari Paintings of the NalaDamayanti Theme (New Delhi: National Museum, l975). (2) See Alvan Clark Eastman, The NalaDamayanti Drawings (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1959).
Swiss collection 1983
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.