Jalandhara Ragaputra, from a Ragamala series
date: label: Date
content: ca. 1740-1750
notes: label: School/Tradition
content: Bilaspur school
label: Label
content: The life-giving rains of the monsoon and its sensuous pleasures inspired the musical composition (raga) Megh and its associated compositions (raginis and ragaputras). This Bilaspur painting, which represents Jalandhara ragaputra, invites us to imagine the romance associated with the monsoon season, a time when travel was difficult and couples stayed together at home. The sound of Jalandhara ragini is likened to clouds and thunder in the Mesakarna classification of ragamala. In the painting, rain pours from the sky. The spout of water pouring into the hero's mouth as he gazes at the beloved who brought him the pitcher, further develops that mood. The image emphasizes the materiality of water and the bond between the lovers.
label: Label
content: Dressed in luxurious silks, adorned with pearls and gems, the lovers embody an ideal of refined pleasure, or kama, which refers not to an isolated act of sex but rather to the making of a connoisseur's kama world on earth. To live a proper life, gentlemen and kings were expected to cultivate their senses in order to appreciate the subtleties of exquisite wines, perfumes, jewelry -- and lovemaking.
label: Label
content: Artworks, including musical compositions, were expected to create moods (bhava) and invoke emotional responses in connoisseurs (rasikas). The most important of the aesthetic responses was considered to be the shringar rasa, or the aesthetic emotion of love and the erotic, which is conveyed in this folio from a Bilaspur ragamala series.
label: Label
content: Bilaspur was the capital of the small kingdom of Kahlur located in the central area of the Punjab Hills near Mandi. In seventeenth-century Mandi and Bilaspur, artists did not draw on the Basohli style of Pahari paintings, but rather produced Mughal-inspired works. In the eighteenth century the courts developed their own distinctive idioms. Ragamala series were particularly popular in Bilaspur.
label: Provenance
content: To 1947
label: Provenance
content: Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), Colombo, Sri Lanka, London, England, and Needham, Massachusetts [1]
label: Provenance
content: To 1984
label: Provenance
content: Galleria, San Francisco, California [2]
label: Provenance
content: From 1984 to 2018
label: Provenance
content: Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Beverly Hills, California, purchased in June 1984 from Galleria [3]
label: Provenance
content: From 2018
label: Provenance
content: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, partial gift and purchase from Catherine Glyn Benkaim [4]
label: Provenance
content: Notes:
label: Provenance
content: [1] Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy was born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and moved to England for his education in 1879. He attended university in London, graduating with degrees in geology and botany in 1900. He then returned to Ceylon and pursued a career in mineralogy, earning a doctorate in 1906. He was active from 1907 until his death in 1947 in Needham, Massachusetts. In 1910, however, his interests shifted to Indian and Sri Lankan culture, and he moved to America to serve as curator of Indian art and as a researcher of Indian and Middle Eastern art for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Because he spent the second half of his life in the U.S., it is highly unlikely that any art from his personal collection would have a contested provenance.
label: Provenance
content: [2] See Acquisition Justification Form, object file, Collections Management Office.
label: Provenance
content: [3] See note 2.
label: Provenance
content: [4] See note 2.
label: Collection
content: National Museum of Asian Art Collection
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Galleria
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Catherine Glynn Benkaim (born 1946)
place: label: Origin
content: Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh state, India
topic: label: Topic
content: rain
label: Topic
content: ragamala
label: Topic
content: India
label: Topic
content: South Asian and Himalayan Art
label: Topic
content: Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection
setName: label: See more items in
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection — funds provided by the Friends of the National Museum of Asian Art
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: S2018.1.4
objectType: label: Type
content: Painting
objectRights: label: Restrictions & Rights
content: CC0
physicalDescription: label: Medium
content: Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
label: Dimensions
content: H x W (painting): 20.6 × 14.8 cm (8 1/8 × 5 13/16 in)
label: Dimensions
content: H x W (overall): 27 × 20.6 cm (10 5/8 × 8 1/8 in)