Women in Love

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This highly erotic painting, seeking to represent a lesbian couple engaged in enjoying wine and the sensuous game of love-making, an exact reproduction of a late eighteenth century miniature from Nagor, a sub-centre of Marwar painting style as it prevailed primarily at Jodhpur in Rajasthan, portrays a true picture of perversions that had routed into the lifestyle of Indian aristocracy, more so during eighteenth-nineteenth centuries. Paintings portraying homosexuality amongst males are often seen but such as represented homosexuality amongst females are quite rare. This painting, rendered pursuing in its exactness the earlier model from Nagor, attests that love among persons of the same sex, now a theme of world-wide discourse, revelation by celebrities and well-pitched voices for its legalization, had been a part of life even in medieval days. Not a vain fiction, the painting portrays the truth of the day for unless in actual practice enjoying sanction, whatever its degree or whichever the group granting it, a painting with a theme such as this, or any of the kind, particularly when rendered for a patron, usually the king, could not see the light of the day.

Lustful clasp, mad infatuation in eyes and every muscle and every limb bursting with the heat of passion, so much so that the garments worn have to struggle to contain them, all speak loud that terms like modesty do not work when it comes to enjoying the most intimate moments. It is a moment when the distinction that biology creates and gender identifies is completely abolished. Not a farcical or dramatic manipulation : one playing the male, and other, female, the two damsels are very much in their own beings, though far above their bodies they soar into the plane of absolute delight. The level of infatuation of both is the same, though the taller one in green headdress, the senior partner, with a wine-jar and goblet in her hands, almost riding over her, appears to be coaxing her junior companion who is almost in a compromising posture. In a mere blouse, unable to contain her swelling breasts, the zeal in her eyes is more fervent.

The faces of both have a glow though that on the face of the junior partner, combined with her youthfulness, is greater. The heat of passion, infused into their blood, has twisted their figures. Their birds-like eyes, fixed into a gaze, are charged with erotic desire. Their figures have been conceived with sharp pointed noses, cute small lips, broad foreheads, protruding rounded chins, well defined necks, and fine delicately modeled figures as if carved of ivory. They are seated against a huge bolster inside an arched balconied window framed with delicate ivory columns and lining. A beautiful wall carpet, designed with floral and leaf-patterns, and a broad border rendered in white and light colour-tones, comprises the window’s lower part – a railing type structure usually added to a window’s bottom for safety and privacy. The painting is contained in a multi-tiered border, the main component comprising flower-and-leaf design. The headdresses of the two ladies are exotic and characteristic to Nagor style.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.