Vedic Art Print – Udumbara, The Fruiting Fig Branch

Provenance

'Udumbara' is composed as a botanical plate: a fruiting fig branch crosses a parchment-toned ground, heavy with round fruit, with a whole fig, a halved fig, a fruiting twig, a leaf and a cross-section of the branch set around it. The Devanagari word 'उदुम्बर' is lettered below with a reference to the Atharvaveda, 19.31, a hymn to an amulet of Udumbara for prosperity in cattle, food, children and wealth. The print lets the diagonal of the branch carry the eye across its clustered fruit.

Clusters of round figs, green, red and deep purple, grow in tight groups along a rough, knotted branch, framed by broad, veined leaves with pale central ribs. At the edges sit a whole red fig and a halved fig with its seeds exposed at upper left, a twig with unripe green figs at left, a single leaf at right, a second whole fig at lower right and a cross-section of the branch showing its growth rings.

Green, red and plum fruit sit against olive leaves and grey-brown bark, on ochre-cream parchment. Fine pen lines describe each leaf vein and the texture of the bark as drawn, and the faint mottling of the ground is visible in the image itself.