Accompanying an exhibition at the Museum Rietberg, this catalogue of 60 works drawn from one of the most important private collections in Europe provides an excellent survey of Indian painting from 1575-1850 from two of the most important sources: the court of the north Indian Mughal rulers and the ateliers in the Deccan farther south. The works present a wide variety of styles and themes and invite close examination. Mughal culture was one of the richest the world has ever seen. The magnificence of the Mughal palaces and tombs, the pomp of the court, the lavish ceremonies and feasts, the fame of the court poets, intellectuals, painters and musicians, the sumptuousness of the courtiers' attire--all these came together to create an aristocratic culture of extraordinary wealth and grandeur. Books--and above all books lavishly decorated with exquisite miniatures--had a role and a status in Mughal culture which is almost unimaginable today. They were among the most valuable and certainly the most prized objects in the imperial treasury and were used systematically and effectively to propagate the political goals of the ruler. Whereas Mughal artists depict the real world, record historical events, and portray their patrons in realistic likenesses, Deccanni painters, instead, aim at evoking lyrical moods. They invent paradisal dreamworlds bathed in fantastic, flamboyant colors, sparkling with gold. When they represent their rulers, they create idealized, introspective figures lost in the quiet enchantment of love, or music, or merely the perfume of a beautiful flower.

Mughal and Deccani Paintings

Arts & Photography

Seyller, John

Seitz, Konrad

History & Criticism

Paul Holberton Publishing

Shringara and Bhakti: Sacred and Profane Love at the Court of Orchha (Orchha, Datia, Panna: Miniatures from the Royal Courts of Bundelkhand (1590–1850) Vol. II) (Eva and Konrad Seitz Collection, 55)

Niyogi Books

• Explores the unique features of the initial period of Orchha painting (1590-1605)\n• Features over 100 images of exquisite miniature paintings from this school\nThis book about miniature painting at the Bundelkhand royal courts of Orchha, Datia, and Panna is the first to admit an understanding of the works that two fatal misconceptions regarding their time and place of origin have hitherto thwarted. The miniature school of Bundelkhand that first developed at Orchha was the earliest and most Indian of all the Rajput schools and at the time of its founding the only one to practice a purely indigenous style of painting, “untainted” by the naturalism of imperial Mughal painting. The author’s interpretations and stylistic analyses of over 240 paintings from his collection, many of them published here for the first time, shed light on the school’s development from the late 16th century to the early days of British rule. The book also introduces readers to the conceptual world of Rajput miniature painting and the rasa aesthetic that anticipates the modern reception aesthetic. Origins of Orchha Painting, the first volume of the series Orchha, Datia, Panna: Miniatures from the Royal Courts of Bundelkhand (1590–1850), deals with the founding period of Orchha painting, the years 1590–1605, and how it derived from pre-Mughal Early Rajput painting, which flourished at the Tomar court of Gwalior from around 1460 until the downfall of the Hindu kingdom in 1518. The subsequent volumes, Stylistic Trends in Bundelkhand Painting, analyze how this Rajput school developed during the period 1605–1635 and spread to Datia after the disintegration of Orchha in 1635 and later to Panna, the Bundela state of Chattrasal, in the 1680s. Bundelkhand painting ended with Chattrasal’s death in 1731, and it was only after a long interruption, in the beginning of the 19th century, that the school experienced an Indian summer at the court of Datia during the period of British suzerainty.

Origins of Orchha Painting: Orchha, Datia, Panna: Miniatures from the Royal Courts of Bundelkhand (1590–1850) Vol. 1

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