AN EARLY PICCHAVAI FRAGMENT OF A GOPI HOLDING A GARLAND
INDIA, DECCAN, 18TH CENTURY
£3,780
Auction: 11 June 2025 from 10:00 BST
Description
opaque watercolour heightened with gold on a dyed black cotton ground, backed with a piece of eighteenth or nineteenth century silk brocade, the elegant gopi adorned with jewellery, stands facing right holding a white floral garland, dressed in an olive green pleated sari edged with gold over a crimson underskirt, within a gold cartouche
Dimensions
24cm x 13.5cm
Provenance
Acquired from Terence McInerney in 2006.
Footnote
This image is a fragment from a larger wall hanging or picchavai. Picchavais are temple hangings of the Vallabhacharya sampradaya (sect), founded by the scholarly saint and legendary religious teacher Vallabhacharya around 1500. Its members worship Krishna Govardhana as Srinathji, the divine child king.
The original wall hanging probably had a row of similar gopis within cartouches along its lower edge, or in the borders surrounding the central devotional image. Deccani wall hangings of this period with a black ground are rare. As the colour black does not maintain its pigment as well as others, un-retouched pieces are not often found. Similar gopis can be seen in the inner border framing the central design of Krishna fluting in a late eighteenth century Deccani picchavai on a very dark blue, almost black, cotton ground in the Calico Museum, Ahmedabad.