Krishna and his family admire a solar eclipse, perhaps a page from the “Kangra/Modi” Bhagavata Purana

Object Details

• Artist

  First generation after Nainsukh (active ca. 1710-1778)

• School/Tradition

  Kangra school

• Marks

  Verso: personal seal of Abdur Rahman Chughtai.

• Inscriptions

  Verso: some Urdu and English inscriptions.

• Provenance

  To 1975

  Abdur Rahman Chughtai (1897-1975), Lahore, Pakistan [1]

  From 1975 to 2008

  Arif Rahman Chughtai, ownership transferred after the death of his father, Abdur Rahman Chughtai in 1975 [2]

  From 2008 to 2017

  Catherine Glynn Benkaim, Beverly Hills, California, purchased from Arif Rahman Chughtai in the United States in September 2008

  From 2017

  Freer Gallery of Art, partial gift and purchase from Catherine Glynn Benkaim [3]

  Notes:

  [1] The painting has a personal seal of Abdur Rahman Chughtai. One of Pakistan’s leading twentieth-century artists, Abdur Rahman Chughtai (1897-1975) built up a substantial collection of Indian paintings over the course of his career. This painting is likely to have left Himachal Pradesh for Pakistan before 1972 (when Chughtai was 75 years old). The artist’s own works and his collection of Indian court paintings went to his son, Arif Rahman Chughtai, who registered many of the Indian paintings as property of a museum dedicated to his father’s art. This painting does not bear the stamp of the Chughtai museum, which indicates that it was not registered with the Pakistani government as the property of the Chughtai museum.

  [2] See notes 1.

  [3] See Acquisition Consideration Form, object file, Collections Management Office.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Previous custodian or owner

  Abdur Rahman Chughtai (1897-1975)

  Arif Rahman Chughtai

  Catherine Glynn Benkaim

• Origin

  Kangra, Himachal Pradesh state, India

• Credit Line

  Purchase from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• Type

  Painting

• Restrictions and Rights

  CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  1770s, 1780s

• Name

  Benkaim, Catherine Glynn, Chughtai, Arif Rahman, Chughtai, Abdur Rahman

• Place

  Kangra, Himachal Pradesh state, India

• Topic

  South Asian and Himalayan Art, Landscapes, Art, Krishna, Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection, Bhagavata Purana, Eclipses

• Culture

  Himalayan peoples, South Asians

• Object Type

  Paintings