Krishna and his family admire a solar eclipse, perhaps a page from the “Kangra/Modi” Bhagavata Purana

Maker(s)
Artist: First generation after Nainsukh (active ca. 1710-1778)
Historical period(s)
1775-1780
School
Kangra school
Medium
Opaque watercolor on paper
Dimensions
H x W (image): 15.7 × 23.8 cm (6 3/16 × 9 3/8 in) H x W (sheet): 19.7 × 28 cm (7 3/4 × 11 in)
Geography
India, Himachal Pradesh state, Kangra
Credit Line
Purchase from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection — Charles Lang Freer Endowment
Collection
Freer Gallery of Art
Accession Number
F2017.13.5
On View Location
Currently not on view
Classification(s)
Painting
Type

Manuscript folio

Keywords
Bhagavata Purana, eclipse, India, Krishna, landscape, Ralph and Catherine Benkaim collection
Provenance

To 1975
Abdur Rahman Chughtai (1897-1975), Lahore, Pakistan [1]

From 1975 to 2008
Arif Rahman Chughtai, ownership transferred after the death of his father, Abdur Rahman Chughtai in 1975 [2]

From 2008 to 2017
Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Beverly Hills, California, purchased from Arif Rahman Chughtai in the United States in September 2008

From 2017
Freer Gallery of Art, partial gift and purchase from Catherine Glynn Benkaim [3]

Notes:

[1] The painting has a personal seal of Abdur Rahman Chughtai. One of Pakistan’s leading twentieth-century artists, Abdur Rahman Chughtai (1897-1975) built up a substantial collection of Indian paintings over the course of his career. This painting is likely to have left Himachal Pradesh for Pakistan before 1972 (when Chughtai was 75 years old). The artist’s own works and his collection of Indian court paintings went to his son, Arif Rahman Chughtai, who registered many of the Indian paintings as property of a museum dedicated to his father’s art. This painting does not bear the stamp of the Chughtai museum, which indicates that it was not registered with the Pakistani government as the property of the Chughtai museum.

[2] See notes 1.

[3] See Acquisition Consideration Form, object file, Collections Management Office.

Previous Owner(s) and Custodian(s)

Arif Rahman Chughtai
Abdur Rahman Chughtai 1897-1975
Catherine Glynn Benkaim

Inscription(s)

Verso: some Urdu and English inscriptions.

Marking(s)

Verso: personal seal of Abdur Rahman Chughtai.

Collection Area(s)
South Asian and Himalayan Art
Web Resources
CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

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