Three Pahari drawings: Two sketches for Ramayana series, Chamba, circa 1720-1760; A scene of ladies in a raised Zenana platform, Pahari, late 18th century

The drawings in this lot are as follows:

A: A scene from the Ramayana: Hanuman with a troop of monkeys, Chamba, circa 1720-30
B: A scene from the Ramayana: Monkeys in battle with demons, Chamba, circa 1760
C. Ladies in the Zenana, Pahari, late 18th century

The Ramayana scenes in this lot (A and B) are from two related but separate series produced in Chamba between circa 1720 and 1760. The first (A), showing Hanuman with a troop of monkeys, is from a series produced circa 1720-1730 of which several other drawings are known, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Bayle Art Museum, University of Virginia and the Israel Museum (see Pal 1990, p.104, fig.12; Goswamy and Fischer 1990, p.132, fig.42; Ohri 1983, p.13; Ohri 2001, pl.15, Ohri 1998, pp.160-161). Discussing the drawing in Los Angeles, Pal comments "The sketch may have been intended for a Siege of Lanka Series. Very likely the sketch was done in Chamba in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Stylistically it seems earlier than another Chamba Ramayana Series rendered around 1760..." (Pal 1990, p.106)

The second (B), of marginally smaller dimensions, is from the slightly later Chamba series referred to by Pal, executed around 1760. Among the several drawings that survive, a close stylistic and compositional comparison to the present example can be seen in a fragmentary drawing in the Bhuri Singh Museum, Chamba, illustrated in Ohri 1998, p.161, fig.9.

Both these series were closely connected to the monumental Seige of Lanka series, executed by Manaku of Guler about 1725-30, from which many of the large-scale drawings survive. For discussions of all three of these series see Goswamy and Fischer 1990, pp.243, Craven 1990, Ohri 1998.