TWO DRAWINGS FROM THE GITA GOVINDA: KRISHNA COMFORTS RADHA AND KRISHNA, ARTIST OF THE FIRST GENERATION AFTER NAINSUKH, INDIA, KANGRA OR GULER, CIRCA 1780; RADHA MAKING LOVE, NORTH INDIA, PUNJAB HILLS, SECOND HALF 18TH CENTURY

1. Sotheby's London, 7 October 2015, lot 287.

The scene of Krishna comforting Radha is set on a veranda within a courtyard in Radha’s house. The lines of the buildings have been ruled in black ink as have the framing lines. Feint lines of the under-drawing in sanguine can be seen round the figures. A wash priming in a slightly lighter colour than that of the paper has been used to fill in the outlines of the figures.

The illustration belongs to a series that is generally thought to be the preparatory drawings for what Goswamy and Fischer call the ‘Second’ Guler Gita Govinda series of circa 1775 (see Goswamy and Fischer ‘The First Generation’, p.689). This series is also known as the ‘First Kangra’ Gita Govinda or the ‘Tehri-Garhwal’ Gita Govinda from its supposed provenance (Archer 1973, vol.I, p.293). Archer attributed the series to the work of the sons of Nainsukh and Manaku, produced for the nuptials of Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra in 1781 (ibid. p.292). 

Goswamy and Fischer now suggest that the sanguine under-drawing for the preparatory series is attributable to Nainsukh himself around 1770, and that the later overdrawing in ink was added after the painted series was finished, since the paintings often follows the sanguine under-drawing rather than the ink ‘tidyings-up’ (Goswamy and Fischer, ‘Nainsukh of Guler’ pp.681-2). Only the most minute examination of the whole series of drawings and related paintings can confirm this assertion, but it must be pointed out that the sanguine under-drawing seen in the current lot and other examples is very much thinner and less masterful than the rare drawings only in sanguine that the same authors attribute to Nainsukh himself (e.g. ibid, fig.15).