Ernest Stephen Lumsden was a Scot by descent and adoption, though not by birth, and he made Edinburgh his home town, teaching at Edinburgh College of Art from 1908 until 1912. Long before he began his extensive travels to India and beyond, E.S.Lumsden had established himself as one of the rising ...
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The Relief of Lucknow, 1857
By Thomas Jones Barker
Date painted: 1859
Oil on canvas, 105.4 x 181.3 cm
The picture represents an incident in the Indian Rebellion or Mutiny of 1857: Lucknow was besieged, but with only a relatively small number of troops, helped by later reinforcements unde...
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Demoiselle Crane (Anthropoides virgo)
By Bhawani Das
Kolkata, c. 1780
The migratory Demoiselle Crane is found over a wide area, from the Black Sea to northeast China. Commonly wintering in north India and Pakistan, it was often mentioned in poetry and folklore. Beautiful women, for example, ...
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Mary, Lady Impey, wife of the Chief Justice Sir Elijah Impey, between 1777 and 1782 commissioned many paintings that formed a part of a great collection of natural history studies at Calcutta. The Impeys shared the keen scholarly curiosity about India which prevailed among the circle of the Gover...
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Painting of a prince and attendant with a falcon. The prince, seated cross-legged on the left, strokes the falcon who rests on the arm of the courtier. Both men sit on a carpet. Void background. No text. Painted in opaque watercolour on paper.
Mughal Style
Mughal dynasty
1600 (circa)
Indi...
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Man and woman with hawk. Single page painting mounted on detached album folio. A side depicts man and woman with hawk sitting on a carpet outside a red tent by a lake, surrounded by attendants. Mountains in background. Trees in background and foreground. Pink and gold border. B side depicts a cal...
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New Book:
Birds and Animals in Mughal Miniature Paintings
By Zaheda Khanam
Published by D.K. Printworld - 2009
Summary:
The depiction of flora and fauna has been an intrinsic part of Indian painting traditions. The Mughals in their turn, in their fascinating paintings, used the bird and an...
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Hawking portrait of emperor Jahangir and a page. Painting mounted onto a detached album folio. Both figures hold birds (identified as falcons in the register) on their right wrists. Composite picture executed by two different hands and different times. Inscription below the figure of Jahangir ide...
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Birds by a pond. Single-page unfinished painting. Ink and opaque watercolour on paper. A parliament of birds beside a pavilion set against a pond or lake. The birds include pairs of parrots, hoopoes, partridges, pheasants, ducks, a pelican, an eared nightjar and a waterhen.
Watercolour painting on paper of Hayagriva, considered to be the 18th incarnation of Viṣṇu. He is shown with a horse’s head on a golden skinned human body. He wears a pink dhoti with a matching shawl draped over his shoulders. A string of beads hangs around his neck. He has four arms; his upper r...
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Story-telling painting, in gouache of the 'Paithan' type, illustrating a narrative from the Mahabharata. Rejoicings; the trials of Harishchandra and his family end happily.
Vishnu observes the king embracing Krishna, and the queen, Rukmini. Between the pairs are, the somewhat forgotten Vasishth...
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This formal composition shows the facade of a small palace pavilion, with nine painted scenes of the exploits of the young Krishna. From lower right: Vishnu reclines on the snake Shesha; Brahma bows before Krishna; Krishna suckles to death the d...
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An illustration from the Bhagavata Purana depicting the battle between Kṛṣṇa and Rukmi. After Kṛṣṇa elopes with Rukmini, her brother Rukmi follows to stop the wedding, and a battle ensues.
Gouache painting on paper
Attributed to: Nikka
Pahari School
Chamba Style
1775-1780 (circa)
Chamba
Kannappa, a hunter, who offers his eyes during a test of his devotion, is shown on the verge of gouging out his eye with an arrow in order to replace the damaged eye of the linga. He places his right foot on one of the linga’s eyes so he knows where to place his own eye. At this point, Śiva’s arm...
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