Dhanasri Ragini
date: label: Date
content: ca. 1680
notes: label: School/Tradition
content: Bundi or Raghogarh school
label: Label
content: Dhanasri Ragini has the emotion of longing for one's absent beloved; the painful feeling (Sanskrit, viraha) is one of the central emotions explored in Indic poetry and music. The musical mode of Dhanasri is often represented as a lady recalling drawing a portrait of her lover. Arranged at her feet are a row of seashells, which artists used for mixing pigments, two bowls for water and two rectangular boxes for holding brushes. The empty in the chamber to the heroine's right emphasizes her lover's absence.
label: Label
content: A few female artists are known, and the iconography of Dhanasri (as well as several famous episodes in Sanskrit classical literature) indicates that the idea of women drawing was widely imaginable.
label: Label
content: The planarity of the scene, its deep, rich palette, and its narrow-headed, wide-eyed heroines are elements of painting in the small court of Raghogarh, where artists produced compositions that were often ultimately based upon Mughal compositions. In this painting, the sandstone pavilion, with its star-pattern tile floor, interior niches, voluminous red and green curtain tied up at the ceiling, (as well as the yellow-bordered red canopy shading the heroine) are simpler and more graphic versions of Mughal prototypes.
label: Provenance
content: To 1971
label: Provenance
content: Chhote Bharany, New Delhi [1]
label: Provenance
content: From 1971 to 2001
label: Provenance
content: Ralph Benkaim (1914-2001), purchased from Chhote Bharany, New Delhi in December 1971
label: Provenance
content: From 2001 to 2018
label: Provenance
content: Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Beverly Hills, California, by inheritance from Ralph Benkaim in 2001
label: Provenance
content: From 2018
label: Provenance
content: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, partial gift and purchase from Catherine Glynn Benkaim
label: Provenance
content: Notes:
label: Provenance
content: [1] All of the Benkaim Bharany paintings were bought in the United States, according to Catherine Glynn Benkaim May 23-24, 2016, who further notes that the dealer Chhote Bharany had two children who went to school in California and he had relatives in NYC. Gurshuran Sidhu reported that Bharany took all of his paintings out of India before the Emergency (most probably in 1969) and kept them with William Wolff in New York.
label: Collection
content: National Museum of Asian Art Collection
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Chhote Bharany (New Dehli, India)
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Ralph and Catherine Benkaim
label: Previous custodian or owner
content: Catherine Glynn Benkaim (born 1946)
place: label: Origin
content: Bundi or Raghogarh, Rajasthan state, India
topic: label: Topic
content: portrait
label: Topic
content: woman
label: Topic
content: ragamala
label: Topic
content: pavilion
label: Topic
content: India
label: Topic
content: South Asian and Himalayan Art
label: Topic
content: painting
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: S2018.1.32
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): 23.5 × 18.4 cm (9 1/4 × 7 1/4 in)
label: Dimensions
content: H x W (overall): 31.2 × 24.5 cm (12 5/16 × 9 5/8 in)