2018-04-02 Mon

India has been a riot of colours with each region developing a culturally unique style of paintings! Miniature Paintings undoubtedly are the best of all. Starting from merely being the illustrations for religious texts, Miniature Paintings have stolen many hearts with its varied topics of depiction. India Post in 1973 has commemorated a few on stamps. Let’s have a look at two out of these set of four beauties.

Kishangarh’s Radha: This “Mona Lisa of India” is an excellent example of Kishangarh School of Rajasthani Miniatures. Painted by a famous artist called Nihal Chand, the lady depicted here as “Radha”, was said to be a singer and poet in the court of Savant Singh by the name ‘Bhani-Thani’ (possibly pseudo). Interestingly Bani-Thani featured as the female character and Raja Savant Singh as the male character in many of Nihal Chand’s paintings. This 20 Paise commemorative honours this beautiful Rajasthani miniature art on stamps!

Dancing Duets: The art of Miniature paintings developed mainly because of the royal and the religious patronages. Under the Mughals, a beautiful blend of Persian craftsmanship with Indian ethnicity infused some realism into the miniatures. However, Aurangzeb being a devout Islamic did not patronize art and the Mughal school of miniatures saw a set back with religious Islamic quotes and calligraphy finding the foreground. This painting on 50 Paise stamp, depicting a dancing couple is one such uncommon Mughal Miniatures from Aurangzeb’s period.

Such beauty these stamps are! Do you have them in your collection?

Image courtesy: Mintage World