ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: ‘LALITA RAGINI’ IN THE STYLE OF GOVARDHAN

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ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: ‘LALITA RAGINI’ IN THE STYLE OF GOVARDHAN

Mughal India.

Circa 1740.

Gouache on paper heightened with gold.

Dimensions: 20.3 x 16.3 cm.

This exquisite painting is the visual representation of a musical mode (raga) from classical Indian music. It is a pictorial metaphor for a raga, belonging to a Ragamala (Garland of melodies).

The mode represented in this painting is ‘Lalita Ragini’. It is a morning raga which is often depicted showing a young prince holding white flower garlands (mala) in each hand, quietly departing his lover in the morning, after a night of passion. He looks back at his lover as he leaves with a longing gaze. She is still sleeping – with eyes closed on her bed on an open-air terrace. Behind her is a small pavilion with a brilliant orange awning.

Raga (Sanskrit, color or passion) is the term for a set framework for improvisation. Having originated in the first millennium, ragas were systematized and classified during the thirteenth through sixteenth century. A common system recognized six raga husbands, each “married” to five ragini wives for a total of thirty-six “families.” Families of musical modes sometimes included sons or ragaputras as well.

By the fifteenth century, ragas had become associated with specific moods, times, seasons, affective properties, deities, lovers, and heroes. Around 1590-1620, illustrated ragamala series became a favorite subject for Rajput patrons, as well as for some Mughals, such as Abd-ur Rahim, patron of the Freer Ramayana and the Laud Ragamala. Specific iconographies were developed for depicting each mode. These formulae lent themselves to variations, which were sometimes dependent on region.

Illustrated ragas evoke mood and engender feeling, as do musical compositions. But the connection seems to be indirect. Although some connoisseurs of music may have internally “heard” a composition when viewing its image, ragamalas were probably more broadly valued for their poetic and pictorial pleasures. The commission of a ragamala series would also have been understood as a sign of a patron’s cultivated sensibility.

In this depiction of Lalita Ragini, the heroine is depicted lying face up, fast asleep. In other examples she lies on her side pretending annoyance at her prince for leaving so early.

One description of Lalit Ragini from the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York (Object Number: 1975.409.1) reads:

“Wearing many ornaments and garments, splendid,

the fair mistress lies exhausted upon her bed at dawn”.

A closely related Lalita Ragini painting, from the same period, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Accession Number: IS.90-1952), London. Please see the link,

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O433906/lalita-ragini-painting-unknown/

There is a comparable Lalita Ragini painting in the Johnson Album 37 (No. 8) in the India Office Library, in the British Library, London.

Another earlier version of the ragini, a Sub-Imperial Mughal painting perhaps from Marwar, which was once in the collection of Ralph and Catherine Benkaim and now in the National Museum of Asian Art at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. (accession number: S2018.1.48) has an inscription on the recto in devanagari – which the museum has transcribed as:

“Praful sapt chad malya dhari … yuva ch gauro salochan sri. vinihi sratra vasre grahat pragyati. vilasivesho lalit pradishtah“.

This may be translated as:

“The hero holds a garland of seven blooming flowers (saptchad). He is young and fair with beautiful eyes. He leaves the house early morning in a self-indulgent mood and looks extremely beautiful. Lalit Ragini”. See: https://asia-archive.si.edu/object/S2018.1.48/

For comparison see:

Falk and M. Archer, Indian Paintings in the India Office Library, London, 1981, no. 173.

For further discussion and comparisons see:

Ebeling, Ragamala Painting, Basel, 1973.

C.Glynn, R. Skelton and A.L.Dallapiccola, Ragamala Paintings from India from the Claudio Moscatelli Collection, London, 2011.

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ILLUSTRATION TO A RAGAMALA SERIES: ‘LALITA RAGINI’ IN THE STYLE OF GOVARDHAN

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