Notable sales

This painting is from an important series known as the 'Large Basohli Bhagavata

Purana' or the 'Fifth Basohli Bhagavata Purana' series. Finely executed and in

remarkably good condition, it is important as a milestone in the development of

painting in the Pahari courts and as a key example of the work of the family of

Manaku and Nainsukh, sons of Seu, the leading family of artists in Guler and

Basohli in the 17th century. The series has been attributed to Fattu (c.1725-c.1785),

son of Manaku, nephew of Nainsukh, and shows influence from both of those

senior artists. One painting bears a possible date of 1769 (Binney Collection, San

Diego Museum of Art, see Goswamy and Smith 2006, no.93, pp.222-223), although

this has been disputed, and it is likely that the series as a whole took several years to

complete. The series was formerly in the collection of a Mrs F. K. Smith and was

dispersed at auction in 1960 (Sotheby's, London, Important Western and Oriental

Manuscripts and Miniatures, 1 February 1960, lots 1-93). Many are now in museum

collections including those of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Royal

Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, the Museum of

Fine Arts, Boston, Yale University Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the

Cleveland Museum of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Rietberg Museum,

Zurich.

The series is discussed and illustrated as follows:

Archer and Binney 1968, nos.55a-b, pp.74-75

Archer 1973, vol.I, pp.49-51, vol.II, nos.22i-xiii, pp.36-39

Archer 1976, nos.8-10, pp.14-19

Leach 1995, vol.II, nos.11.50-11.54, pp.1048-1053

Mason 2001, no.80, p.188

Goswamy and Smith 2005, nos.92-93, pp.220-223

Goswamy and Fischer 2011b, pp. 687-699, nos.1a-1d