(India, late Mughal 1760/70) Mother and child in a landscape, gouache and gold on paper, black border and framing lines in reddish-orange, gold, green and white, mounted on a blue album(?) page, 38 x 27 cm, damaged (blemished at the corners), unframed, (Hu)

The artist related to the Christian motif of the Madonna on a Moon Sickle or Suncrowned Madonna (Apocalyptic Madonna). The Madonna crushes the serpent and is holding the child, who is offering her a fruit. Prints after works by Schongauer, Lucas van Leyden or Albrecht Dürer arrived in India, Sri Lanka and Goa where local artists copied them. The present work goes back to a watercolour in Washington, which in turn is the copy after a European template (see Ill.): Anonymous Mughal artist, Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Copy after an engraving by a Westphalian or Netherlandish artist of ca. 1520, ink, opaque watercolour and gold on paper, 12,9 x 9,4 cm. Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art, Washington D. C. S 1990, 57. See also: Jerry Losty, Problems in Deccani and Mughal drawings: a marbled ox fight and the Virgin of the Apocalypse, British Library, Asian and African Studies blog, 12th Oct. 2015.

We are grateful to Mrs. Univ. Prof. Dr. Ebba Koch for the scientific evaluation.