- Museum number
- 1962,1231,0.13.27
- Description
-
Opaque watercolour painting of Rati, the goddess of lust and consort of Manmatha, riding a horse composed of five female figures, all dressed in long trousers and bodices, typically referred to as the panchanari turaga. Of these, two form the animal’s legs; the fly whisk carried by the second is the animal’s tail. The third bows gracefully ahead and plays the cymbals, thus constituting the head and neck of the horse. A fourth, seated playing the mridanga, is its belly, and the fifth constitutes its saddle. The goddess carries in her right hand a spear, holding the horse’s bridle in her left hand.
- Production date
- 1830 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 22.60 centimetres
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Width: 17.60 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Dallapiccola 2010:
An almost identical rendering of Kama and Rati riding on composite animals is among the early nineteenth-century paintings on the ceiling of the maharanga mandapa of the Virupaksha temple at Hampi.
This painting is part of an album of ninety-one paintings (1962,1231,0.13.1–91) illustrating gods, goddesses, saints and scenes from Hindu mythology. One of the most interesting features of the album are the eight major temple sites included: Srirangam, Tiruvallur, Rameswaram, Tirunelveli, Palani, Madurai, Thiruvanaikoil (Tiruvanaikka or Jambukeshvara) and Tiruchchirappalli. Furthermore, included in this series are some of the most important murtis enshrined in temples such as Venkatachalapati of Tirumala, Vitthala of Pandharpur and Thyagarajasvami of Tiruvarur. The geographical area covered by the paintings encompasses the totality of the former Madras Presidency and extends into the former Bombay Presidency, giving an insight into the most revered pilgrimage sites in early nineteenth-century southern India.
The drawings were first done in pencil, traces of which are still visible. In the course of his work the artist has sometimes changed his mind, as for instance in the positioning of the arms and feet of the figures. Slight shading has been consistently applied to the faces, arms and legs of the figures to suggest three-dimensionality. The vibrant colours and the delicacy of the drawings make the figures stand out from the pages.
The pages are numbered in reverse order from the back, on paper water marked ‘1820’. Occasionally, a brief note is pencilled in English, probably by a British Museum curator, at the back of some of the temple depictions. An almost identical work, albeit containing a hundred drawings, each with bilingual inscriptions in Telugu and English, is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IM 355-1923 to 454-1923). The sequence of the images is similar to that in this album.
- Location
- On display (G33/dc66b/s3)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
See 1962,1231.0.13.1
- Acquisition date
- 1962
- Acquisition notes
- Transferred from the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books (OMPB) in 1962.
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1962,1231,0.13.27
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 1167 (Egerton number)
