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5. Illustration of a yet unidentified Scene from the Katha sarit sagara (Ocean of the Streams of Story) India, probably Delhi Sub-Imperial Mughal, Akbar period, circa 1590? Opaque watercolor and gold on paper? Image: 53⁄4 by 31⁄8 in. (14.4 by 7.9 cm.) Folio: 123⁄4 by 81⁄8 in. (32.4 by 20.6 cm.) |
A child, secured to the branches of a towering tree, captures the attention of a man passing below him. The man, ignoring his pair of laden oxen that drink from the spring nearby, looks upward in a furtive attempt to communicate with the ensnared youth. Above them, the mythical bird, Garuda, is poised within the lush foliage. He extends his right hand as if to bestow a delicate white lotus flower upon the man beneath the tree. Throughout, the intricate background is beautifully layered with rolling hills and pastel rocks that recede toward the horizon, and a building is depicted in the distance. Ocean of the Streams of Story is a vast compilation of tales in the Sanskrit language by the Kashmiri poet, Somadeva (11th century). The hundreds of stories included feature rogues and rakes, fools and wise men, gamblers and thieves, forest tribes and false ascetics, as well as faithful and adulterous men and women. Stylistically, the pictures relate to illustrations in other manuscripts prepared in the imperial workshop around 1590. Similar pictures occur in a copy of Anari’s Divan copies for Akbar in 1588 in Lahore.[1] Nine pages from this series are known to exist, all of which were in the Heeramaneck Collection. Each of them has a Persian inscription identifying the scene illustrated on its reverse. Three that site reference to the Ardeshar collection[2] are located in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.[3] Two others are in the collection of the San Diego Museum of Art,[4] and another two are in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.[5] The final two are in the Benkaim Collection and another private collection. Provenance: Nasli and Alice Heeramaneck Collection, New York Terence McInerney [1] Pal (1993), p. 210. [2] Roopa Lekha (1940), vol. 1, p. 34, no. 2. [3] Pal (1993), cat. nos. 51a-b, and 52. [4] Binney (1973), nos. 26a-b. [5] Dye (2001), pp. 241-242, cat. nos. 81a-b. |