Kangra painting and Punjab connections

Courtly devotion

Kangra painting belongs within a wider landscape of hill-court art. The Met’s Pavilion with Krishna Paintings, an opaque watercolour on paper dated about 1800, offers one example. Its label describes nine episodes involving Vishnu and Krishna on a small marble pavilion. The curator tentatively interprets the building as a ruler’s puja room, perhaps situated in a palace courtyard or garden, and relates the image to the Kangra household’s devotion. This particular work brings courtly setting and worship together; it does not define every Pahari painting.[2]

Paper and the plains

A 2024 conservation study makes another connection through the paper supporting Pahari drawings and paintings in Leiden’s Wereldmuseum. Amélie Couvrat Desvergnes and Agnieszka Helman-Ważny examined 112 items macroscopically and analysed 81 micro-samples. Their findings identify varied plant fibres, including sunn hemp and cotton. Drawing on material analysis and historical evidence, they interpret the pulp as involving reused cloth, ropes, mats and other fibrous products.[1]

The term Sialkoti associates this paper with Sialkot’s manufacturing history in the Punjab plains. Fibre identification, however, does not establish a particular mill for every sheet. The study concerns a broader Pahari collection, so its evidence cannot simply be assigned to Kangra alone.[1]

New homes for paintings

Paintings also connect the hills and plains through collecting. Vrinda Agrawal’s archival essay follows M. S. Randhawa’s work with hill collections after Partition, including letters and acquisitions for Chandigarh. She identifies contacts in Guler, Chamba and Nurpur and discusses a 1953 letter concerning the purchase of paintings.[3]

Acquisition was not the only result of these encounters. Agrawal notes that budget and other constraints prevented some purchases, while Randhawa’s publications recorded collections that later dispersed. A museum location therefore represents another stage in a painting’s history, distinct from its original place of production.[3]