AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A BHAGAVATA PURANA SERIES KRISHNA PLAYING WITH HIS COWHERD FRIENDS IN THE YAMUNA RIVER MEWAR, CIRCA 1710-15AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A BHAGAVATA PURANA SERIES: KRISHNA PLAYING WITH HIS COWHERD FRIENDS IN THE YAMUNA RIVERMEWAR, CIRCA 1710-15Opaque watercolor, silver, and gold on paper; numbered '21' in the margin; Image: 8 1/2 x 11 1/4 in. (21.6 x 28.6 cm) Folio: 9 1/2 x 12 3/8 in. (24.3 x 31.4 cm)The child Krishna plays with his cowherd friends, the gopas, on the banks of the Yamuna River. Swirls and swift lines of silver over midnight-blue convey the water's current, creating rifles and eddies where a tributary meets. The river swells to such an extent that it nearly overflows into the grassy banks littered with wildflowers, submerging the trunks of two trees from which the boys test their daring to climb and jump off. Krishna himself is shown mid-launch, having let go of his perch and beginning his descent toward Balarama and their friends below. The sport and frivolity are carried over to the cows bedecked with gold and silver bells, whose eyes are bright and alert as one grazes, another licks its hoof, and a grey bull calf watches the young herders with curiosity. This exuberant painting has been attributed by Catherine Glynn to a recently identified master dubbed 'The Master of the Jagged Water's Edge', following the signature zigzag water banks that frequently enliven his compositions. This artist at the Udaipur court served under the reigns of Amar Sing II (r.1698-1710) and Sangram Singh II (r.1710-34)—a period seeing the reinvigoration of the studio which Topsfield describes as, "the final flourish of Mewar manuscript illustration as a living tradition" (Court Painting at Udaipur, 2001, p. 142). Glynn observes that the Master of the Jagged Water's Edge provided an important stylistic bridge across these consecutive reigns and was instrumental in the proliferation of illustrated religious and poetic texts under the latter. In addition to this Bhagavata Purana, she has identified his hand contributing to some of the best-known series from Mewar in the first quarter of the 18th century, including the Sursagar of 1700-10, the Gita Govinda of 1714, the Sat Sai of 1719, and the Sakunavali of 1720-25. The studio master's work can also be seen in paintings sold at Christie's, New York, 18 March 2013, lot 284; and Sotheby's, New York, 20 September 2021, lot 385. Published:Moti Chandra, Mewar Painting, Lalit Kala Akademi, Bombay, 1957, pl. 10.Jerry Losty, Of Royal Patronage: Indian Paintings from 16th to the 19th Centuries, Carlton Rochell Asian Art, New York, 2020, p. 81, no. 31.Catherine Glynn, "A Note on the Master of the Jagged Water's Edge", in A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur, edited by Debra Diamond & Dipti Khera, Washington, D.C., 2022, p. 362, fig. 1. Provenance:Moti Chandra, MumbaiPramod Chandra, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1964-2014American Private CollectionDr. Moti Chandra, the eminent art historian, author, numismatist, and Indologist, was Director of the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India (Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya) for over thirty years. His son, Dr. Pramod Chandra, was Harvard University's George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art for twenty-four years and was described in a tribute in the Harvard Gazette as an "exemplar of the most exacting standards in the scholarship of Indian art history." As well as a beloved professor, Pramod Chandra was a celebrated author and curator, including guest curator of the renowned 1985 exhibition "The Sculpture of India" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The contributions of both father and son to the appreciation and understanding of Indian art cannot be overstated.