Important Notice

KOTA, CIRCA 1740
Gouache on paper heightened with gold
Image: 6.5 x 4.25 in (16.5 x 10.7 cm)
Folio: 7 x 5 in (17.7 x 12.7 cm)

NON-EXPORTABLE REGISTERED ANTIQUITY

PROVENANCE
The Tandan Collection

"Desakh is the only athletic iconography in the Rajasthani tradition...Some painter in the early days of Ragamala Painting, by mistake or by intention, copied an acrobat climbing the central pole upside down. It became subsequently, the iconographic rule. After all, it is inherent in the nature of athletic competition to rate the highest the most difficult feat....In Desakh, as in Nat, the painter is faced with the contradiction of poetry (the Ragini in a heroic mood) and reality (this kind of gymnastics, with its heavy equipment and its bare-chested attire, is exclusively for males)." (Ebeling, Ragamala Painting, pp. 62, 64)

KOTA, CIRCA 1740
Gouache on paper heightened with gold
Image: 6.5 x 4.25 in (16.5 x 10.7 cm)
Folio: 7 x 5 in (17.7 x 12.7 cm)

NON-EXPORTABLE REGISTERED ANTIQUITY

PROVENANCE
The Tandan Collection

"Desakh is the only athletic iconography in the Rajasthani tradition...Some painter in the early days of Ragamala Painting, by mistake or by intention, copied an acrobat climbing the central pole upside down. It became subsequently, the iconographic rule. After all, it is inherent in the nature of athletic competition to rate the highest the most difficult feat....In Desakh, as in Nat, the painter is faced with the contradiction of poetry (the Ragini in a heroic mood) and reality (this kind of gymnastics, with its heavy equipment and its bare-chested attire, is exclusively for males)." (Ebeling, Ragamala Painting, pp. 62, 64)