Studies of an unruly young elephant, India, Rajasthan, Kota, circa 1720-30

ink and gouache on paper, the reverse with a sketch of two entwined wrestlers and other vignettes




coloured sketch: 15.4 by 21.4cm. (6 1/16 by 8 7/16 in.)

sheet: 20 by 22cm. (7⅞by 8 11/16 in.)

Provenance

Adrienne Minassian, New York, 1955

Literature

S.C. Welch, Indian Drawings and Painted Sketches, 16th through 19th Centuries, New York, 1976, no.52, pp.98-99

M. Fraser, Selected Works from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection of Indian and Islamic Art, London, 2015, cat.31, pp.112-3

Exhibited

Indian Drawings and Painted Sketches, 16th through 19th Centuries, the Asia House Gallery, New York; the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, Avery Brundage Collection, 1976

On loan at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1983

Catalogue note

The artist of this lively sketch has skillfully captured the energy, movement and playful power of a rambunctious young elephant. The distinctive style is typical of the master artists of the Kota atelier in the late 17th century and early 18th century, who produced a substantial number of exceptional and dynamic scenes of elephants (see, for example, Beach 2011c, fig.13; Beach 2011d, figs.9-12; Mason 2001, no.65, pp.158-9; Welch and Masteller 2004, nos.38, 47, pp.130-1, 146-7; Welch 1985, p.359, no.242; Beach 1974, pls.LXVII-LXXI, CXV; Mittal 1989, no.29). In several publications Cary Welch attributed the majority of these to two artists he called the 'Master of the Elephant' and the 'Kotah Master' (for his most detailed discussion see Welch 1997). In the catalogue to his 1976 exhibition Indian Drawings and Painted Sketches, Welch described the present sketch as follows: "This drawing is by another anonymous Kota painter deserving of posthumous acclaim. He may have been apprenticed to the 'Master of the Elephants', whose hand can be identified in works well into the eighteenth century. That he knew the earlier artist's work is suggested by a copy ascribable to him of the Master's well-known picture of Ram Singh pursuing a rhinoceros. Here, however, he drew from life and the results are strikingly immediate." (Welch 1976, p.99)




Notwithstanding Welch's earlier work on Kota artists, recent research by Milo Beach has led to a comprehensive reassessment of the Kota atelier at this period, including the artists responsible for the majority of elephant scenes (see Beach 2011c and Beach 2011d). Beach introduced the idea of 'master styles' associated with artists he called Painters A, B and C. Based on this new configuration of Kota painting, the present sketch would now be associated with the master style of painter A or B, the latter who may be identified as Niju.




The reverse of the present work has a sketch of two entwined figures, probably wrestlers in a lock. There are several other small sketches around the two figures, including a turban, two flowers, a mace and wrestlers' rings and weights.