Important Notice

Amrita Sher-Gil started drawing and painting by the age of six, when residing in the Hungarian town of Dunaharaszti. According to her mother, Sher-Gil began "illustrating little stories I used to tell or Hungarian folk-songs of which she was very fond. Later on she would compose her own fairy stories, illustrating them with coloured crayons." (Marie Antoinette quoted in Yashodhara Dalmia, Amrita Sher?Gil: A Life, New Delhi: Penguin, 2006,... Amrita Sher-Gil started drawing and painting by the age of six, when residing in the Hungarian town of Dunaharaszti. According to her mother, Sher-Gil began "illustrating little stories I used to tell or Hungarian folk-songs of which she was very fond. Later on she would compose her own fairy stories, illustrating them with coloured crayons." (Marie Antoinette quoted in Yashodhara Dalmia, Amrita Sher?Gil: A Life, New Delhi: Penguin, 2006, p. 14)

Sher-Gil, who had been home-schooled in English and French along with her sister Indira, was well versed in European children's literature and drew her earliest subjects from the same, besides painting impressions of characters from films and novels. Sher-Gil's early works, such as lots 6 and 7, provide insight into her imagination and skill as a draughtsman and painter.

Lot 6 and 7 also demonstrate Amrita Sher-Gil's inclination for exploring feminine themes from a very young age. The present lot, an elegant watercolour and pencil rendering of a woman dressed in traditional Indian attire and jewellery, was created when Sher-Gil was just nine-years-old. Her fondness for portraying female figures and relationships would remain with her throughout her career, manifesting in later oil paintings where the women she depicted were "handled with great sensitivity and not with superficial pity or condescension." (Yashodhara Dalmia, Amrita Sher- Gil: A Life, New Delhi: Penguin, 2006, p. 20)

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