THE BEAUTIFUL SOHINI SWIMMING TO MEET HER LOVER MAHIVAL AT NIGHT

Project Details

THE BEAUTIFUL SOHINI SWIMMING TO MEET HER LOVER MAHIVAL AT NIGHT

India, Lucknow.

Circa 1780

Dimensions: 18 x 28.5 cm. (Painting), 25 x 33 cm. (Folio).

Sohini swimming on a terracotta pot with a sword at her side, clad in a transparent choli and striped gold pantaloons, Mahiwal seated on the riverbank playing a flute, a sword before him in the grass, buffaloes grazing alongside, an ascetic seated in the foreground, Lucknow, c. 1780, gouache on paper, painted on a gilt-decorated album page.

This fabled legend of two lovers engaging in a clandestine meeting on a moonlit night is a popular subject in North Indian painting. The romance, which combines Muslim and Hindu literary traditions, is often depicted in Indian miniature paintings from Lucknow. The sheathed swords with gold hilts are also of particular note giving elevated status to the two tragic young lovers.

Mahiwal , with the given name of Mirza Izzat Khan , according to the legend, was the son of a wealthy merchant-ruler from Turkestan. On a return journey in the early seventeenth-century, across Northern India , the merchant-caravan paused at Gujarat in the Punjab. It was here at Gujarat that Mirza Izzat Khan encountered the beautiful Sohini working in her father’s pottery shop.

Following this encounter , the enamoured lover stayed on in Gujarat working for Sohini’s father, caring for his buffalo herd and earning the name ‘Mohini’, tender of buffaloes. The unhappily-married Sohini was later betrayed by her sister-in-law who knowing Sohini was unable to swim gave her an unglazed terracotta pot knowing that it would dissolve mid-stream and that Sohini , who could not swim, would drown in the Chenab river. Mahiwal, in an attempt to save her, drowns with his love in the turbulent current of the river shortly afterwards in the moonlight..

For further discussion and comparisons see:

P. Pal, S. Markel and J. Leoshiko, Pleasure Gardens of the Mind, Los Angeles, 1993, nos. 23a-b.

Provenance

From a distinguished private American collection, New York.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Margaret Erskine for writing this article on the present miniature painting.

Categories: Calligraphy & Miniatures

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THE BEAUTIFUL SOHINI SWIMMING TO MEET HER LOVER MAHIVAL AT NIGHT

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