Handpainted – Pichwai – Cows on Indigo Beneath the Swan Boats

Provenance

'Cows on Indigo Beneath the Swan Boats' is a Pichwai painting in which the cow becomes the whole subject. Twenty cows face one another in pairs across a deep indigo field, arranged with the regularity of a woven textile, while two swan-prowed boats float above them beside a pale moon. It shows the Pichwai tradition at its most decorative and graphic.

The cows have cream bodies, orange hooves, black horns and silver neck chains, and are marked with red hand prints. They stand in five rows of four, each pair turned inwards to face its neighbour. At the top, a silver moon sits between two ornate boats with white swan heads and orange pennants, each carrying a seated couple with green halos. A yellow border of pink and blue flowers and green leaves, edged in red, frames the painting.

Indigo, cream and yellow make a bold, clear palette, with small touches of pink, blue and green in the border. Tiny white dots scattered across the indigo give the field a starry quality, and the repetition of the cows gives the composition a calm, steady rhythm. It is a striking, graphic piece for a dining room, a hallway or a modern interior.