2-722-042 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

A Disconsolate Lady on a Terrace with Attendants, c. 1730. This princess is waiting for her lover to arrive. Thinking of him, she touches her breast and her lap, while one attendant keeps flies off with the royal whisk, and the other bites her finger in a gesture of astonishment. The artist has whimsically manipulated elements of the landscape, such as the blazing sun peeking out from behind the flat black hill at the lower left corner, and invading the yellow strip at the top with blocks of blue sky to accommodate the finials of the palace rooftops. Many relatively naturalistic features derived from Mughal paintings have been incorporated, such as the swirling eddies of water and the receding perspective of the architectural spaces.