Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

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A lady singing

  • loan
  • Description

    Because of the seclusion of women in court society, portraits of ladies are rare in Indian painting. But the artists could observe accessible figures such as the court dancers and musicians. This singing-girl is depicted as a nayika, an ideal heroine according to poetical theory. Her lips parted in song, she plucks a green tanpura which bisects the page. Her arching eyebrow and elongated eye typify the ideal of physical beauty developed at Kishangarh.

  • Details

    Associated place
    AsiaIndiawest IndiaRajasthan Kishangarh (place of creation)
    Date
    1740 - 1745
    Artist/maker
    possibly Bhavani Das (active c. 1700 - 1745) (artist)
    Associated people
    possibly Raj Singh, Maharaja of Kishangarh (ruled 1706 - 1748) (commissioner)
    Material and technique
    gouache with gold on paper
    Dimensions
    frame 52.5 x 39.8 x 2.2 cm (height x width x depth)
    painting 36.5 x 25 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Lent by Howard Hodgkin.
    Accession no.
    LI118.31
  • Further reading

    Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2nd February-22nd April 2012, Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin, Andrew Topsfield, ed. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2012), no. 97 on p. 228, pp. 10, 20, 204, & 260, illus. p. 229

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • Returned to lender

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

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