Indian Miniature Paintings from the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection
8th Jul 2003 - 14th Sep 2003
To celebrate 25 Years of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, this exhibition brought together, for the first time, the exquisite collection of Indian Miniature paintings from the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection.
 Raja Viram Dev of Ghanerao out riding with attendants, 1770India: Rajasthan |
 An enraged elephant charging its tormentors in a palace courtyard (detail), c.1725-1750India: Rajasthan |
 Sultan Abdullah Qutb Shah of Golconda, c.1650-1675India: Deccan |
The following text is an extract from the Indian Miniature Paintings gallery guide, written by Susan Stronge, Curator, South Asia, at the Victoria and Albert Musuem.
�The Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection of Indian Miniatures spans a period of over three hundred years (1525 to 1850). It includes studies of animals ranging from magnificent royal stallions to a sketch of an enraged elephant, illustrations to Hindu sacred Hindu texts and Persian mystical poetry, portraits of rulers and pictures of court celebrations. Yet, whether done for Muslim courtly patrons in the Mughal empire and beyond, or for the Hindu rulers of Rajasthan and the Punjab Hills, the means used by the artists would have been remarkably similar.
The artist may well have learned his craft from his own father and would pass on his skills to his son, or to apprentices, in a working environment that was usually entirely masculine. The brushes they used would have been made from hairs plucked from the tail of an animal such as the small, striped squirrels found all over India, set into a quill. The artist or one of his assistants would burnish the paper with a piece of agate to make the surface perfectly smooth, and then would lightly draw the outline of the picture in red or black in a medium that could be easily erased if corrections were needed. When the artist was satisfied with this preliminary drawing, a heavier, more permanent black line would be drawn, and once this had dried, the sheet would be washed with a thin coat of white through which the black drawing would still be visible. The paint was then added in layers to create saturated, intense colours.�
