Handpainted – Kalamkari – Dashavatara Around the Red Lotus

Provenance

'Dashavatara Around the Red Lotus' is a Kalamkari painting built around the ten incarnations of Vishnu, one of the great devotional themes of Indian art. Five arched niches at the top and five at the bottom hold the avatars, while a twelve-petalled lotus fills the centre, turning the composition into a kind of devotional mandala.

Across the upper arches appear the fish, the tortoise, the boar-headed Varaha, the lion-headed Narasimha and the small Vamana; the lower arches hold an axe-bearer, an archer, a figure with a plough, a figure seated on a brick altar and a rider on a white horse. Each lotus petal carries a small figure scene, and at the centre, within a ringed medallion, two figures dance beneath a tree. Scrolling white foliage fills the spaces between.

Red, black and cream make a restrained, graphic palette, with a dark indigo border of linked floral motifs enclosing the whole. The fine, pen-like linework and the alternation of red and black niches give the painting a crisp, rhythmic order. It is a calm, contemplative piece for a study, a prayer room or a modern living space.