Beschreibung:

In the village of Brindavan, young Krishna gently holds the arm of his mother Yashoda as she hugs him tenderly. Nanda stands next to them gesturing his approval. Krishna's younger brother Balarama runs to join them as gopas and village elders gather at left and right. Depicted against a compartmentalized red and green background - stylized trees blossoming above. This lively and tender painting belongs to the well-known important pre-Mughal Bhagavata Purana series circa 1520-40 from the Delhi-Agra area in Northern India which illustrates chapters from Book 10 of the Bhagavata Purana - Divine Tales of the Supreme Lord - depicting the life and exploits of Krishna in his triumphs of love and battle. The painting bears a fragmentary ink inscription at the top reading "...ram." A number of the folios from this series are inscribed in ink with two names “Nana” and “Mithiram” which had previously been thought by some scholars to be the names of the two artists collaborating on the series. However subsequent analysis by Daniel Ehnbom has defined at least 10 anonymous painters contributing to the series. These are referred to by Ehnbom as Painters A-J. The style of our present painting is most closely comparable with painter "A" perhaps the most significant artist of the group, as described by Ehnbom. For more information about the series and the artists who created these works see Daniel Ehnbom, "Masters of the Dispersed Bhagavata Purana", p.77-88, in M. C. Beach, E. Fischer and B. N. Goswamy, Masters of Indian Painting 1100-1650, Artibus Asiae Sup. 48/I, 2011. Also see Sotheby's New York, March 17, 2015, lots 1110, 1111, 1112, 1113 and Sotheby's New York, March 16, 2016, lots 775, 776, 777. We would like to thank Mitche Kunzman for his assistance with this entry. Attributable to Painter "A" Opaque watercolor on paper folio: 7 by 9 1/4 in. (17.9 by 23.5 cm.), unframed image: 5 1/2 by 8 7/8 in. (14 by 22.7 cm.)