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 by a mango tree

  • Description

    In this unusual composition, perhaps illustrating an unidentified poetic subject, a noble lady stands beneath a fruit-laden mango tree. Her maids and the carriage driver wait nearby. Her carriage is drawn by a pair of docile nilgai or bluebuck, a type of Indian antelope. The lady gazes abstractedly, perhaps feeling the absence of her lover, and she is approached by a pair of sarus cranes, proverbial in India for their conjugal fidelity. Meanwhile she reaches up to grasp a branch of the tree, recalling early Indian sculptural images of the shalabhanjika, the tree nymph or nature goddess who seizes a branch to awaken the tree and ensure its fertility.

  • Details

    Associated place
    AsiaIndiawest IndiaRajasthan Bikaner (place of creation)
    Date
    c. 1700
    Material and technique
    gouache with gold on paper
    Dimensions
    18.4 x 23.9 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by the Simon Digby Memorial Charity, 2012.
    Accession no.
    EA2012.232

Past Exhibition

see (1)

Location

    • currently in research collection

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