No small feat: Pahari miniature fetches Rs93 lakh at fourth Christie’s auction
What is Basohli painting and why is it worth so much?

The fourth Christie’s India auction, which took place on 18 December, threw up a surprise in the high sum fetched for a Basohli painting, ‘Ragamala: Ragaputra Chandrakaya of Malkosa’. The circa 1700 miniature painting made with pigment, gold, silver and beetle wing on paper, belonged to the collection of the late Colonel R.K. Tandan, and fetched a neat Rs93.25 lakh, inclusive of buyer’s premium.
The sale throws light on a style of miniature paintings that has often been overshadowed by its more well known counterpart—the Rajasthan miniature paintings. So what exactly is the Basohli school of painting?
The 20 cmx 18.7 cm painting depicts a woman playing chaupar or pachisi, a traditional Indian game of dice, with a man. Both are seated on a carpet, looking at the game, resting against bolsters. She wears characteristic ornaments studded with emeralds (beetle wings) and pearls (white dots), on a diaphanous peshwaj, with colourful brocade trousers, while the man wears an ornamental turban, a white jama and a sash around his waist. The sophistication of the work can be seen in the absence of excessive ornamentation, a subdued colour pallette and the depiction of movement. The Ragamala refers to a series of works that aimed to depict the mood evoked by different ragas—or melodies—of Indian classical music.
Tandan, who died in 2009, had a formidable collection of miniature works. His scholarship brought to the attention of the world the importance of Basohli paintings amongst the Pahari schools. In the December 2015 Saffronart auction of classical Indian art, two Basohli Ragamgals from his collection sold for a record-making Rs96 lakh each.
Chandramani Singh offers a fascinating historical perspective of the Basohli style in Indian paintings for the 1974 edition of Kailash, a Journal of Himalayan Studies. Basohli is a town located on the river Ravi, in present-day Jammu. This style of painting developed towards the later half of the 17th century—the first dated examples are from the time of Raja Kirpal Pal (1678-93), by which time it was already an established art style, with a fully-mature decorative tradition. “The profuse production of the earliest known examples also suggests that there was a regular atelier or ateliers rather than its being a style limited to individual painters," wrote Singh.
Thus, Basohli, as it is understood today, stands for a traditional decorative tradition of paintings in the hills (thus, also called Pahari paintings), with seats in many places including Kullu, Mandi, Nurpur and Chamba. Miniatures form an important part of Indian classical art.
There are multiple series within the Basohli style—the Rasamanjari, which is the earliest dated examples of this style, and derived from the Sanskrit love poems of Bhanudutta, the Ragamala, to which the piece in the auction belonged to, and the Gita Govinda, which illustrated the spirit of Vaisnavism and devotion to Lord Krishna. The Basohli paintings developed not just through royal patronage, but also through commoners. This, says Singh, throws light on the folk traditions of the Basohli paintings—a strong colour pallette, elaborate landscape, spray-formed foliage—surrounded all the while by its characteristic red border. A particular feature of the Basohli paintings was also to symbolically suggest a dense forest by painting a few trees, which are painted decoratively. Typically, the foliage is bent at the top, and clusters to form bunches of leaves.
Multiple collections possess Basohli paintings—the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Bharat Kala Bhavan in Benaras, among others. This indicates an institutional interest in the form, which is also a factor that determines its value in the art market.
Anjali Devidayal, Specialist Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art at Christies explains that a work such as the Ragaputra Chandrakaya of Malkosa is one of only 65 that comprise the Tandan Ragamala series from the Basohli school. She explains that there are multiple determining factors in arriving at the value of a work of Classical Indian classical art such as the period it belongs to, its rarity, provenance, the condition of the piece, as well as its medium, to name a few “In addition to being valued for its rarity and master craftsmanship and excellent condition," says Devidayal, “it is the use of beetle wings in the jewellery adorning both figures that makes this work even more special. A close examination of the work through a magnifying glass reveals a green luminescence from the beetle wings that is unique to the Basohli school thus enhancing its desirability and therefore value."
The common characteristics of Ragamala works include an eschewing of architectural details, a preference for open-air scenes, and plain monochrome backgrounds, Singh wrote. “A tendency towards simplification of the style in which artists gradually shed the over-ornamentation of the Rasamanjari group has taken place. The result is that human figures have become more lively: the raginis are more elegant, their form slender and tall. There is an overall sophistication in feeling, and more pleasing colour tones are used," he wrote.
Basohli artists were also well-versed in the art of portraiture. Other Basohli royal portraits include that of Raja Kirpal Pal (1678-93), Prince Dhiraj Pal (1693-1725), Mughal prince Jahandar Shah (early 18th century). Other Basohli paintings revolved around Krishna, Radha, and the gopikas.
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FIRST PUBLISHED20.12.2016 | 05:49 PM IST
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