Attributed to Kama, Pahari, Kangra, circa 1800

Opaque watercolor painting and gold on paper

9 23/32 x 7 9/32 in (25 x 19 cm)

Provenance:

Ramesh Kapoor, New York, New York ( – March 7, 1985 )

Edwin Binney 3rd, San Diego, California ( March 7, 1985 – August 27, 1990 )

San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California ( August 27, 1990 – )

Exhibited:

Epic Tales from India: Paintings from The San Diego Museum of Art, The San Diego Museum of Art, 11/19/2016 – 6/12/2018

This image of Rama and Sita, happily united and attended by Hanuman and their bear and monkey allies, as well as Rama’s three brothers, became a popular subject for illustration independent of the Ramayana series. Made for devotion, often for hanging in a temple, such paintings tend to have a vertical rather than a horizontal format and typically present Rama and Sita as king and queen in the mode of local royalty. This painting, produced in Kangra around the year 1800, depicts the pair in a late-eighteenth-century Pahari palace with white pavilions, terraces, and fountains adorned by colorful textiles, including a magnificent Mughal-style trellis carpet. It was made and signed on the reverse by Kama, a son of the artist Nainsukh.