Important Notice

“I feel like an instrument executing a creative impulse, a creative flow which is within me. It directs me, instructs me, it decides for me and it leads me as well.”- M V DHURANDHAR

Born in 1867 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, M V Dhurandhar is often “regarded as the second most popular Indian artist, after Raja Ravi Varma, in the first half of the nineteenth century.” (Ritu Vajpeyi Mohan ed., M V Dhurandhar: The Romantic Realist,... “I feel like an instrument executing a creative impulse, a creative flow which is within me. It directs me, instructs me, it decides for me and it leads me as well.”- M V DHURANDHAR

Born in 1867 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, M V Dhurandhar is often “regarded as the second most popular Indian artist, after Raja Ravi Varma, in the first half of the nineteenth century.” (Ritu Vajpeyi Mohan ed., M V Dhurandhar: The Romantic Realist, New Delhi: DAG, 2018, p. 13) His art primarily focussed on scenes from Indian history, literature, and mythology, articulated in a Western academic style. It was “due to his popularity among the masses, finesse in art and related services to the British government” that he was awarded the title of Rao Bahadur in 1927. (Suhas Bahulkar quoted in Kishore Singh ed., “M V Dhurandhar,” Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art, 2016, New Delhi: DAG, p. 172)

As indicated through his highly detailed watercolours and lavish oil paintings, Dhurandhar managed to maintain a “fine balance between popular commercial art and the academic realism that Ravi Varma was known for. In his own right, as a dutiful teacher in the British-run J J School of Art and also as a successful painter, Dhurandhar was to impress the coming three generations of artists. Although his use of the brush was almost ascetic, he had a princely eye for detail. No wonder this Kolhapur-born artist, who retained his indigenous and vernacular values in the same breath as the high English etiquette, refined this very dichotomy when he painted.” (Abhijeet Tamhane, Manifestations II: Indian Art in the 20th Century, New Delhi: DAG, 2004, p. 91)

A gifted artist who displayed “a keen understanding of the play of light and shade” while he was still a student at the Sir J J School of Art, Dhurandhar later went on to gain a formidable reputation “as a great painter in the European academic style, one who painted religious, mythological, historical as well as social themes along with portraits and landscapes.” (Mohan ed., pp. 28 - 29)

Dhurandhar was also able to begin and nurture a relationship with the one of the best-known artists of his time, Raja Ravi Varma. Though he had seen and been inspired by Ravi Varma’s works while growing up, it was during an exhibition hosted by the Bombay Art Society in 1896 that Dhurandhar finally had the chance to meet him. Ravi Varma, who was one of the invitees, was particularly struck by one of Dhurandhar’s oil paintings, titled The Music Lesson. The model of the painting was the same as the one in many of Ravi Varma’s paintings of goddesses. Ravi Varma “bought the painting and, subsequently, printed multiple copies at his lithopress, as a result of which it soon reached many households. Thus started Dhurandhar’s association with Raja Ravi Varma, one that would last till the latter’s death in 1906, and one that would impact Dhurandhar’s art practice considerably.” (Mohan ed., p. 39)

Dhurandhar followed in the footsteps of Ravi Varma when it came to illustrating characters and episodes from India’s rich mythological subjects onto his canvas, as evident in the present lot. “The nurtured influences of Ravi Varma and Dhurandhar’s self-inclined religiosity led to the latter showing a tendency to paint pictures of deities of the religious pantheon. Prior to this, during the period 1901 to 1904, Dhurandhar had done many illustrations for Shriman Sheth Purushottam Vishram Mavji’s monthly magazine Swarnamala. These were based on mythological themes, including Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagwad Gita, Ganeshapurana and Shivapurana.” Dhurandhar’s popularity increased, particularly amongst the royal families of the region which, in turn, led to numerous commissions coming his way. At the same time, his works also reached out to the masses since “Swarnamala regularly featured one coloured and eight black-and-white illustrations by Dhurandhar. The artist, not surprisingly, reached the common as well as the elite class. Soon, he began to be offered commissions for paintings on religion and deities.” (Suhas Bahulkar quoted in Kishore Singh ed., “M V Dhurandhar,” Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art II, 2017, p. 222)

Untitled (Draupadi Vastraharan) is a large format oil painting by Dhurandhar that brings a critical point from the Mahabharata to life. The events leading up to this point along with the actual incident involving the Kauravas’ attempted stripping and humiliation of Draupadi, the wife of the five Pandavas, have been discussed in the note accompanying Ravi Varma’s painting of the same incident (lot 13).

While Dhurandhar’s choice of representing the same scene as Ravi Varma is perhaps an homage to an artist he admired greatly, the present lot is painted in a manner that is typical of his style. Though the subject matter is inherently Indian, the canvas reflects elements of Dhurandhar’s late Victorian stylistic sensibility, with the central characters being presented in a theatrical manner. He manages to bring forth a gamut of ever-changing facial expressions and body language within everyone present in the court scene. At the same time, he shows tremendous skill in his rendering of Draupadi - the subtle play of light along the unending yards of her diaphanous sari as it is being stripped forcefully from her body, the colourful yards lying discarded at her feet, the desperation and plea in her expression as she looks up at the faint shadow of Lord Krishna who she beseeches for help in preserving her modesty. All these elements sum up to present a talent that is “remarkable” and help “to highlight the extent of the imaginative power of the painter.” (Singh ed., p. 222)

In 1933, Dhurandhar received a royal commission from the Maharaja of Chhota Udaipur, a princely state in Gujarat. The commission included the creation of 16 murals on themes that “represented the diversity of work in which, so far, he had proved his skill, consisting of paintings ranging from subjects of mythology to landscapes as well as representations of Indian seasons. While there was some unpleasantness in the commercial agreement and how it was ultimately settled, the works that Dhurandhar left behind in Chhota Udaipur were indeed grand.” (Mohan ed., p. 51) The present lot, painted in 1934, is believed to have been created as a part of the same commission.

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