Indian Watercolor From a Ragamala Series

Very interesting drawing of two soldiers in uniform one most likely French holding a rifle with bayonet and the other, Swiss, dressed in a fancy red outfit with codpiece and odd hat holding a menacing looking mace. Behind them on either side are burning castles...

19th century Indian erotic gouache depicting a couple copulating while standing on a carpet with a bolster behind. The actions of the couple juxtaposed with the calm demeanor on thei...

A pair of 19th century Indian erotic gouaches depicting copulating couples engaging in different positions. The actions of the couples juxtaposed with the calm demeanor on their face...

18th century Italian capriccio depicting ruins based on the Roman Temple of Vesta being visited by a group of Grand Tour travelers. With an arched bridge and another columned structu...

Small scale expressionistic oil on board in vivid pink, blue and green paint, by East Village artist Kim Keever. He was a part of the 1980s New York City East Village...

Ugo Sterpini (Italian, 1927-2000)''La Lotta Sulla Duna" (The Battle On The Dune). Mixed media on canvas, signed and dated ''58'' lower right, signed, titl...

This Mughal miniature was painted at one of the princely courts of India. It depicts a raven-haired princess in a gold-trimmed saffron-colored silk sari. Under a glowering evening sky she dawdles on a white marble terrace, with a pet fawn on a leash, before a landscape dotted with buildings nestled amongst trees beyond a river. Her hair, falling loosely about her shoulders, rather than carefully dressed on her head, indicates that she is a maiden. The overall mood is one of expectancy. Perhaps walking a pet and catching an evening breeze is a pretext to escape palace scrutiny for a lovers’ assignation. In Mughal India tender sentiments were a bridge to the erotic – and if this seems contradictory, so too is the balance of realism and caricature, and naturalism with the schematic. Both are hallmarks of miniatures painted in this place and time. The earliest Mughal Indian miniatures date to the 16th century. They were inspired by those painted at the refined Moslem courts of the neighboring Persian empire. They incorporated figures in spite of the Moslem faith’s proscription against depicting the human form. Such was the nature of sophisticated courtly life everywhere that beauty and pleasure trumped systems of morality. This was no less the case at the provincial Indian courts, where our miniature, marked by a charming pictorial naiveté, was most likely painted. Yet the artist was undeniably accomplished. His command of perspective, introduced by Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century, is seen in the landscape, which rolls back to a distant horizon, contrary to the flat two-dimensional ones following Indian-painting traditions. And if Mughal artists were influenced by Western art, the compliment was returned by Rembrandt and Sir Joshua Reynolds, among others, who collected Indian miniatures (as did, perhaps, Giovanni Bellini who painted in Mughal style the famous miniature of a Persian man...

A richly-hued abstract work on paper by the artist M.P. Landis. The artist's abstract paintings and works on paper are the type that take form through the artist's layering of materi...

A fine late 18th century, early 19th century watercolour of an Indian shrub with yellow flowers. By Janet Dick. A paper label on the reverse is inscribed ‘Drawn while the artist w...

O/8182 - This is an unusual painting: the famous Austrian painter Paul Renner, on the occasion of his own wedding, painted a series of watercolors as a gift to friends invited to his wedding. This one looks like steam coming out of a magic lamp...

An original French pen and ink and watercolored drawing of a "Module Egypto-Grec", in the Beaux Arts style (circa 1850). The watercolored drawing has been recently matted and framed ...

Watercolor by William Leighton Leitch (British, 1804-1883), Cally, Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway, with estate stamp (lower right). W...