In many of his works Husain draws postures and hand gestures from classical Indian sculpture and dance, mudras are reworked to become personal symbols for the artist.  The hand gesture in the current lot appears to be a slight adaptation of the prana mudra in the Indian yogic tradition which is symbolic of healing.  Furthermore Prana is associa🎃ted with the sun and so the golden circle is equally symbolic and likely to represent the life-giving forces of the sun.🌸

‘Some of Husain’s symbols are drawn from folk art and are traditional.  His manner of using them, however, while retaining the original impulses, takes them beyond their original simple meanings.  The human hand for instance, an expressive symbol in Indian dance, recurs frequently in Husain’s paintings.  It is usually given an independent life, almost separate from the body to which it belongs.  It occurs with mystical markings on the palm, is lightly made, sometimes deeply shadowed, enclosed as though upon a secret.’ (Shiv S. Kapur, Husain, Lalit Kala Akademi, 1961, p. vii).

'Behind every stroke of the artist's brush is a vast hinterland of traditional concepts, forms, meanings.  His vision is never uniquely his own; it is a new perspective given to the collective experience of his race.  It is in this fundamental sense that we speak of Husain being in the authentic tradition of Indian Art.  He has been unique in his ability to forge a pictorial language, which is indisputably of the contemporary Indian situation but surcharged with all the energies, the rhythms of his art heritage.'  (E. Alkazi, M. F. Husain: The Modern Artist and Tradition, New Delhi, p.3).