Women with lanterns and fireworks celebrating the festival of Diwali.

Drawing on paper.

Attributed to a follower of Nainsukh
Pahari School
Guler Style
1760 (circa)

The term 'Pahari School' refers to paintings created in the small Rajput courts of the Punjab Hills. While the Pahari region was occupied from the 7th century onwards, with dated architectural monuments and temples, there is no evidence of painting until the mid-16th century. The painting tradition really flourished from the 17th to the 19th centuries.

The term 'Guler style' refers to paintings from the court of Guler in the Punjab Hills. Paintings in this style tend to include elegant and undulating lines, prominent outlines, naturalistic landscape, and a soft colour palette.

Curator's comments - Cameron, AM:

This drawing is heavily influenced by the Awadi style. This can be seen in the pronounced single-point perspective, detailed depiction of architecture and tall, conical hats worn by several of the women in attendance. See 1948,1009,0.99, which is a finished painting (attributed to Nainsukh) for which this is either a preparatory drawing, or one based on the painting. The difference in the facial types of the principal women, the presence of a hint of colour on one of the figures, and the addition of the outlines of several figures among the line of trees at the back leads BN Goswamy (a leading scholar of Pahari painting) to believe the latter. It was not uncommon for an associate or a relative of Nainsukh, the master artist, to keep visual 'notes' of this kind, and even indicate the colour used in the original. Nainsukh came from a family of artists; his father and two sons are all identified through inscriptional evidence and worked in a complimentary Seu family style.

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