Beschreibung:

An illuminated Hindu religious manuscript in scroll form
North India, mid-19th Centurynagari manuscript on paper, in scroll form, ten depictions of Hindu deities within cartouches, in two identical columns alongside each other, below an Islamic-style illuminated headpiece, extensive text written in small nagari script in black ink in two columns between gold and orange margin rules, in maroon leather cylindrical document holder
scroll 2 m. 41 cm. x 10.2 cm.; length of holder 13 cm.(2)FootnotesProvenance
Private UK collection since approximately the late 1950s.
The five deities, arranged in two identical parallel rows, are Ganesh, a form of the Devi[?] or a form of Lakshmi[?], Lakshmi, Sarasvati, and Kali.
The style of the illumination, the headpiece and the margin rules, are of the type far more associated with Islamic prayer scrolls, as is the polished paper. For an 18th Century Bhagavata Purana scroll, produced in Kashmir, see Sotheby's New York, Important Indian Paintings from the Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck Collection, 22nd March 2002, lot 30, where further comparison is made with an example in the National Museum, New Delhi: the link with Islamic scroll manuscripts (for the purposes of talismans or amulets) is made, both the format and the use of very small script (ghubari in Arabic manuscripts). See S. P. Gupta (ed.), Masterpiece from the National Museum Collection, New Delhi 1985, p. 91, no. 123.