Malkos Raga, Folio from a Ragamala (Garland of Melodies)

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Malkos Raga, Folio from a Ragamala (Garland of Melodies)

India, Jammu and Kashmir, Basohli, circa 1690-1700
Drawings; watercolors
Opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Sheet: 8 1/2 x 10 7/8 in. (21.59 x 27.62 cm); Image: 7 1/2 x 9 1/8 in. (19.05 x 23.17 cm)
Gift of Doris Wiener in honor of Dr. Pratapaditya Pal (AC1995.143.1)
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

Malkos Raga is the second raga in all the ragamala (garland of melodies) classification systems. It is a sublime melody associated with midnight and late winter (December–January)....
Malkos Raga is the second raga in all the ragamala (garland of melodies) classification systems. It is a sublime melody associated with midnight and late winter (December–January). It is one of the least distinctive ragas but is often personified as a hero or prince seated in or near a pavilion with a courtly woman. The couple is typically partaking of betel nut quids (pan). A woman (or women) sometimes holds an honorific fly whisk. Here, the hero is kneeling on a terrace with a striped carpet beside a white pavilion with floral decoration. A woman offers him a dish of betel nut quids. A lone cypress tree stands against a dark background indicating that it is a nighttime melody. See also M.71.1.22 and M.83.105.12. Although the hero does not wear the idiosyncratic quatrefoil-shaped pendant worn by Basohli royalty for regal identification and proclamatory purposes (see M.81.271.8 and M.83.105.8), which suggests that he may not be intended as a Basohli prince, he wears the same type of related pendant, sports the same thin, scruffy facial hair, and has a similar stylistic treatment of his eye as the Basohli figural type typified in a Basohli Velavala Ragaputra attributed to circa 1710 in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (199.1992). At least three Basohli ragamalas from circa 1680-1710 have been identified to date, but the LACMA folio appears to be from another distinct series based on its dimensions and border style.
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