Contemporary Indian miniature executed over an early book leaf

Unidentified artist

Contemporary Indian miniature executed over an early book leaf.

My belief that this is not an antique painting is based on the fact that the image appears to be painted over the text and that the uppermost surface of the paint is smooth rather than slightly abraded as would be the case if the painting had been an original image in an illuminated book.

Tempera and gouache with gold leaf on fine India paper

Size: (sheet) 20 x 10.3 cm

Condition: worm holes in the sheet and the painted image has small losses (i.e. very tiny flakes of paint are missing).

I am selling this exquisite hand-painted Indian book-leaf for AU$300 in total (currently US$226.48/EUR202.74/GBP172.98 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this fine example of the Mogul style of painting, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

I was shuffling through my prints last night and I came upon this exquisite painting that I collected about thirty years ago when travelling through India in an inappropriate vehicle: a double-decker London bus. At the time that I purchased the painting I knew (or at least I suspected) that it was unlikely to be an original Mogul illuminated leaf from a book but I wanted the page regardless, simply because it was so well executed and it fitted well with my vision of Indian painting: the use of stacked space where the portrayed subjects are layered on top of one another rather than disposed using the Western convention of perspective and the arrangement of key pictorial elements in separated “wells” of space.