Lot 90
'VEILED BRIDE WITH FISH’ BY A MAITHIL KAYASTH WOMAN
INDIA, BIHAR, DARBHANGA DISTRICT, DAREMA VILLAGE, CIRCA 1920-30
£1,638
Auction: Indian Paintings from the Collection of William & Mildred Archer | Lots 84 to 152 | 12 June at 10am
Description
watercolour on paper, painted in pink, green and yellow, mounted
Dimensions
33cm x 24cm (13 in x 9 ½in)
Footnote
Exhibited & Literature:
Indian Paintings from court, town and village, Arts Council of Great Britain Touring Exhibition Catalogue, 1970, no. 54.
William and Mildred Archer, India Served and Observed, London, 1994, chapter on the earthquake and discovering the murals.
Note:
This work and the following three Brides (lots 90-94) are charming and vibrant ‘aide memoires’ for murals in the kohbar or marriage chamber of the houses of The Maithil Kayesth and were collected by WG Archer in 1934.
The murals were designed to give the bride and groom prosperity, good fortune and fertility and were always painted by women. The women would bring their ‘aide memoires’ with them when they married to help them decorate the walls of their marital home accordingly.
On discovering the murals after an earthquake in 1934, William Archer writes ‘They (the women) portrayed their main subjects with a shrill boldness, with savage forcefulness. Not for them the frail and whimsical fancies of a floating world….I was astonished to see a figure of a bride, her veil a robust triangle, her face a single huge eye.....here was Picasso naked and unashamed.‘
