Collection of Paul Walter.

A gopa (cowherd) caresses the flanks of a caparisoned cow - her calf walks happily ahead of them. In Hinduism cows are considered to be sacred and a💖re closely associated with Krishna often personified as Venugopala - the king of the cowherds.

This powerful large working drawing from Kotah in Rajasthan has a surface which has been rubbed with a fine charcoal powder (pounce) into tiny pin-pricked holes which outlined the pen and ink compo💮sition. That technique was sometimes used to transfer a full-size preparatory drawing like ours as a modello for a wall painting or large cloth hanging. Pricking and pouncing for transfer was a technique used for centuries all around the world to copy compositions from one surface to another - as during the Italian Renaissance where it was referred to as Spolvero.

So this is a working study possibly made for a wall mural - its charcoal pouncing technique was originally considered to be purely utilitarian. Pounced prototypes such as the present example didn't often (and generally weren't intended to🧸) survive the vigorous working process - and thus ours may be further enjoyed as a scarce survivor of that process - its coating of charcoal perhaps even adding to its visual aesthetic.

Another very related large ink drawing - of a cow and her calf - also pounced with charcoal for transfer, is in the collection of the Br𒉰ooklyn Museum, New York (accession number: 79.260.4).