An Exhibition of Indian Paintings from Rajasthan of the Sixteenth-Nineteenth Centuries,May to September 1963Source: The British Museum Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 1/2 (Autumn, 1963), pp. 58-59Published by: British MuseumStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4422814 .

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21 J. D. Evans, Proc. Prehist. Soc., vol. xix, pt. I (195 3), 94; Malta, London (Thames & Hud- son, I959).

22 W. S. Broecker, J. L. Kulp, and C. S. Tucek, Science, cxxiv (1956), I54-65.

23 Sir Thomas Zammit, .Archaeologia, 1xvii

(1916), 134-6; Prehistoric Malta, Oxford Univ. Press (Oxford 1930).

24 James Mellaart, Anatolian Studies, viii (1958), 127-56; ix (1959), 51-56; ix (I96I), 70-74.

SHORTER NOTICES AN EXHIBITION OF INDIAN

PAINTINGS FROM RAJASTHAN OF THE SIXTEENTH-

NINETEENTH CENTURIES, MAY TO SEPTEMBER 1963

THE Muslim invasions of North India in the I3th century abruptly terminated the classical Hindu culture of the region, and with it the temple architecture, sculpture, and wall- painting which had been its expression for about fifteen hundred years. The Muslims had no tradition of painting and seem, at least until the fifteenth century, not to have patro- nized the art. The mercantile and banking communities of Gujarat and Rajasthan, however, for the most part belonging to the Jain religion, continued to donate illustrated manuscripts of the sacred texts to the temples. Three such manuscripts are exhi- bited here, of the second half of the fifteenth century. By this time the naturalism of classical Indian painting had been reduced to a pattern of line and colour-a small achieve- ment but decorative and lively. With the emergence of strong native states in Rajas- than, as the central Muslim authority at Delhi began to weaken, one state at least, Mewar (Udaipur), seems by the end of the fifteenth century to have evolved a new style, based on the old but with a startling in- crease of range and expressiveness. Generally known as the Chaurapanchasika Style, it is here represented by five pages from a dis- persed Bhagavata Purana of the first half of

the sixteenth century. This style had, how- ever, no future, since a fresh wave of Muslim invaders had already seized north India, and the two greatest emperors of the Mughal dynasty, Akbar and Jahangir, completed the systematic pacification of the whole region. The Rajput nobles entered Mughal service on honourable terms and were soon made aware of the miniature paintings of the im- perial ateliers: a naturalistic style which was quite original but based to some extent on the Safavid painting of contemporary Persia. The Rajputs began to utilize the style of their masters, adapting it, however, to their more formal taste. One of the finest ex- amples of Rajasthan painting in this manner is the set of pictures illustrating musical modes-Ragamala-lent by Dr. W. B. Manley. It is, ironically, at Mewar, the last Rajput state to submit, that the Mughal style of the Akbar period had the strongest influence. In this painting the collections of the British Museum are particularly rich. Three volumes of a Ramayana are exhibited. The Sixth Book of the Ramayana was painted by an important master Sahibdin in 1652. The Second Book, in the same style, was completed in I65o. The survival of the general style into the eighteenth century is illustrated by a First Book dated 1712. The Akbar style was also felt with perhaps rather more satisfying results, since the native strain was stronger, in the small states of Bundi and Kotah, and in the region of Malwa. The decline of patronage at Delhi, especially

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under the puritan emperor Aurangzeb in the second half of the seventeenth century A.D., released Mughal artists to the employ of those Rajput chiefs most closely associated with the court. At Bikaner, of which school one of the most important paintings is here

exhibited, native taste was thereby almost

entirely submerged. During the seventeenth

century the states of Rajasthan had enjoyed a partial revival of influence and self-con- fidence. In the eighteenth century with the decline of the Mughal Empire under the assaults of the Afghans and the Marathas, the level of accomplishment was much lower.

Kishangadh was able for a brief period to

produce a highly poetic style devoted to the romantic portrayal of the loves of Krishna and Radha. Three miniatures of this school are exhibited, though the masterpieces are all in the collection of the Kishangadh Darbar. Towards the end of the century Kotah was

responsible for some very original landscape painting. Portraiture at Marwar (Jodhpur) continued to be distinguished and well de-

signed into the nineteenth century. A little- known style, gauche but saved by a charming colour sense, is that of the desert town of

Jaisalmer. In order to show the work of artists in the

rest of north India (excluding the Panjab Hills) during this period, a rich series of Orissa illustrated manuscripts on palm-leaf is

exhibited, together with several scrolls and book-covers from eastern India and two re- markable Assamese manuscripts, dated 1735 and

I835.

AN EXHIBITION IN THE KING'S LIBRARY OF BOOKS, MANU-

SCRIPTS, AND ANTIQUITIES FROM ETHIOPIA

THIS exhibition, containing nearly one hundred exhibits, was on view in the

King's Library from Io June to 8 July. The emphasis was on manuscripts, attention

being paid not only to calligraphy and illu-

mination, but also to literary importance. Examples of printing in the Ethiopic script from the fifteenth century to the present day were included, along with the accounts of

important expeditions to Ethiopia since the sixteenth century. Ecclesiastical art was ex-

emplified by numerous ceremonial objects; and coins, early maps, and travellers' draw-

ings were shown. The exhibition preceded the Second International Conference of

Ethiopian Studies held at the University of Manchester from 8 to i i July.

WOOD'S TOWN ATLAS

THE Map Room of the British Museum has

recently acquired a copy of Wood's Town

Atlas (Edinburgh, 1818-28). This is a col- lection of forty-eight plans of towns in Scot- land engraved or lithographed on large scales

(usually 20 inches or more to a mile). John Wood was an Edinburgh land surveyor, de- scribed in directories up to 1846 as 'Per- manent Director of Land Surveyors' Society'. He financed the surveys from which the plans in his atlas were made by soliciting commis- sions or subsidies from the corporations of the individual towns; early impressions from the

plates were circulated to the corporations and revised from their corrections.

The atlas constitutes the most important single series of Scottish town plans before those made for the Parliamentary Boundary Report in 1832, which (although more

numerous) were on the smaller scale of 6 inches to a mile. Wood's plans give the names of property owners and indications of land use, and are, accordingly, of great inter- est to the social and economic historian.

The atlas is very rare, probably because it was not issued with a title-page and many

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