Credit Line:Promised Gift of the Kronos Collections, 2015
Accession Number:SL.21.2016.1.79
In this striking portrait Hari Ram sits on a pink carpet, resting against a dark green, striped bolster. He holds a less bulky red bolster under his left arm and leans on a small pillow covered with the larger bolster’s dark green, striped fabric. He clutches a white handkerchief in his pointing, right hand and wears a tight, red cap tied with a white and gold scarf and decorated with a jaunty peacock feather. Shri Gosain (Priest) Hari Ramji, a remarkable man credited with several miracles, was the head of the Vaishnava establishment (math) at Pindori, in the Gurdaspur district of the Punjab, from around 1676 until his death in 1718. (1) Founded in the late l6th century, Hari Ram’s establishment was extremely influential throughout the Punjab Hills. However, his tenure there was not altogether free of controversy: on one occasion, he was almost beaten to death. (2) But Hari Ram looks very content and authoritative in this closely observed and highly detailed, yet posthumous portrait. Note the barely visible wrinkles around his eyes, his incipient paunch, and the tamed bristles of his magnificent beard. The solid, peori yellow background; strong outlines; careful placement of contributing elements; and the figureground intensity recall other works painted by the artist B.N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer have called the Master at the Court of Mankot. (3) For an earlier portrait by another Mankot artist who was probably employed in the Master’s workshop, see cat. no. 42. For another painting by the Master himself, see cat. no. 62. (1) Francesca Galloway 2000, pg. 82 (2) Ibid (3) For discussion of the Master at the Court of Mandi, see M.C.Beach, Eberhard Fischer, and B.N. Goswamy, eds., 2011, Vol. II, pp. 501514 and B.N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer 1992, pp. 96125. For two closely related portraits, see ibid, nos. 3839.
Inscription: Inscribed on the recto in white ink written in takri script: “Shri Gosain Hari Ramji”
Ex collection: John Kasmin, P & D Colnaghi & Co. Ltd 1970s., Lord Thompson of Fleet Canada; Francesca Galloway 2000; Purchased by Kronos Collection at Sotheby’s London, 2014
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.
