Osian's Auction Catalogue Indian Modern Fine Arts | June 2017

6 Nandalal Bose (1882 – 1966) Jagai Madhai Lithograph (After the drawing Jagai Madhai); the drawing was completed c.1906-7; exact dating for the Lithograph is unknown Signed in Bengali l.r. 8.9 x 6.7 in (22.5 x 17.0 cm) Provenance Eminent Mumbai-based Family Collection. INR 300,000 – 450,000 USD 4,688 – 7,031 National Art Treasure | Non-Exportable Item “Right from the beginning, however, he had mastered the human figure in the round in all its mass, volume and contour: witness, his drawing, Jagai Madhai (1909) which earned great praise from Sister Nivedita and which, I imagine, would have earned the envy of a Mansur or Durer. His passion for and assertion of the supremacy of drawing as the ultimate determinant of good painting was possibly rivalled only be Ingres.” Asok Mitra, rpt. in ‘Nandalal Bose’ rpt. in Nandalal Bose [LKA: 1983]; p.21. Also Fig.46 shows B/w Illustration of Jagai Madhai, though cannot confirm whether they have correctly used the drawing or lithograph as source, though stated as drawing in the Index on p.92. Also See Full Page Illustration in Nandalal Bose (1882-1966) Centenary Exhibition Catalogue [NGMA: 1982]; Fig.154, p.188. This too seems to have assumed it has the sepia drawing as does Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan. Partha Mitter. p.323 Fig.165 Pen & Ink. Jagai Madhai represents the famous story of two brothers born into a high Brahmana family, but taking to various vices due to bad associations and eventually being embraced and forgiven by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and so accepted into Vaisnavism. See Partha Mitter.1994, Fig 165, p.323 for b/w illustration of the drawing Jagai Madhai “…it is another of the great technical triumphs of the artist and the school… [A work] at once so small and so perfect… Firm anatomical drawing, the strokes that in their thousands make hair, the definite and harmonious patterning of the turban… And how exquisite is the sum total! An extraordinary proof of the technical perfection of this tiny work lies in the fact that under a magnifying glass, it is the modeling of the two faces that becomes most prominent. Sister Nivedita [Margaret Noble]; rpt. in Partha Mitter. 1994; p.323. Indian Modern Fine Arts | 23