WASHINGTON, DC.- The international tour of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery’s groundbreaking 2008 exhibition “Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur” will include an additional venue, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The exhibition of 55 newly discovered Indian paintings from the royal court collection of Marwar-Jodhpur (in the modern state of Rajasthan) will be on view in Sydney October 29 – January 26, 2010. “Garden and Cosmos” was at the British Museum through October 11, and widely heralded as one of London’s top exhibitions of the summer.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales will be the fourth venue for the exhibition, which opened in the Sackler Gallery last October and traveled to the Seattle Asian Art Museum before moving to the British Museum in May. The tour will conclude at the National Museum of India in New Delhi in the spring of 2010.
The exhibition has received extensive critical and popular attention, including a royal reception at the British Museum. His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales gave opening remarks to patrons and special guests, including His Highness Gaj Singh II, Maharaja of Marwar-Jodhpur, and Her Highness Maharani Hemlata Rajye.
Debra Diamond, curator of South and Southeast Asian art at the Freer and Sackler galleries, first encountered the paintings as a doctoral student in India in the 1980s. Virtually none of the paintings had been published or seen by scholars before the Sackler exhibition. Produced for the pleasure of the maharajas between 1725 and 1843, the works are strikingly innovative in their large scale, subject matter and styles, revealing the conceptual sophistication of the royal atelier and the kingdom’s engagement with the changing political landscapes of early modern India.
Diamond collaborated with Karni Singh Jasol, director of the Mehrangarh Museum, and Catherine Glynn, an independent scholar of Rajput painting, to produce the exhibition and its accompanying comprehensive catalog. More than 50 of the works presented were lent to the Sackler Gallery by His Highness Gaj Singh II from the Mehrangarh Museum Trust. Selected paintings are also on loan from the National Museum of India.
“Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur” was organized by the Sackler Gallery in collaboration with the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, India.
