Krishna and his family admire a solar eclipse, perhaps a page from the “Kangra/Modi” Bhagavata Purana

Object Details

Artist

First generation after Nainsukh (active ca. 1710-1778)

School/Tradition

Kangra school

Marks

Verso: personal seal of Abdur Rahman Chughtai.

Inscriptions

Verso: some Urdu and English inscriptions.

Provenance

To 1975

Abdur Rahman Chughtai (1897-1975), Lahore, Pakistan [1]

From 1975 to 2008

Arif Rahman Chughtai, ownership transferred after the death of his father, Abdur Rahman Chughtai in 1975 [2]

From 2008 to 2017

Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Beverly Hills, California, purchased from Arif Rahman Chughtai in the United States in September 2008

From 2017

Freer Gallery of Art, partial gift and purchase from Catherine Glynn Benkaim [3]

Notes:

[1] The painting has a personal seal of Abdur Rahman Chughtai. One of Pakistan’s leading twentieth-century artists, Abdur Rahman Chughtai (1897-1975) built up a substantial collection of Indian paintings over the course of his career. This painting is likely to have left Himachal Pradesh for Pakistan before 1972 (when Chughtai was 75 years old). The artist’s own works and his collection of Indian court paintings went to his son, Arif Rahman Chughtai, who registered many of the Indian paintings as property of a museum dedicated to his father’s art. This painting does not bear the stamp of the Chughtai museum, which indicates that it was not registered with the Pakistani government as the property of the Chughtai museum.

[2] See notes 1.

[3] See Acquisition Consideration Form, object file, Collections Management Office.

Collection

Freer Gallery of Art Collection

Previous custodian or owner

Abdur Rahman Chughtai (1894-1975)

Arif Rahman Chughtai

Catherine Glynn Benkaim

Credit Line

Purchase from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

1775-1780

Accession Number

F2017.13.5

Restrictions & Rights

CC0

Type

Painting

Medium

Opaque watercolor on paper

Dimensions

H x W (image): 15.7 × 23.8 cm (6 3/16 × 9 3/8 in)

H x W (sheet): 19.7 × 28 cm (7 3/4 × 11 in)

Origin

Kangra, Himachal Pradesh state, India

See more items in

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Collection

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Topic

landscape

Krishna

Bhagavata Purana

India

eclipse

South Asian and Himalayan Art

Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection

Record ID

fsg_F2017.13.5

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ye3760138a9-7ed2-41f8-a34b-516865fabd76