A palace scene

A palace scene (1915)a painting by Samarendranath Gupta is a recreation of an ancient wall painting from the Cave 1 of Ajanta Caves. It is a historic watercolour on paper painting created as a part of a landmark early 20th century expedition to document and preserve India's Ancient artistic heritage. The original site being preserved at Ajanta itself, the specific original folio produced by Gupta is archived at the Indian Museum, South kensington also known as Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It was created during an "epoch-making expedtion" (1900-1911) to the rock-cut Ajanta caves. Sponsored by the Indian Society of Oriental Art and led by British artist and patron Lady Christiana Herringham, the project tasked young avant-garde Indian artists with meticulously copying the rapidly deteriorating 5th-century frescoes. The painting is direct , interpretative copy of a mural located on the left wall of cave 1. It represents a section if Sibi Jataka or Mahajanka Jataka, depicting a lively palace interior. The composition focuses on a conversation between a royal prince, a qyeen and a retinue of ladies. Gupta, beautifully captures the right-hand portion of the wall fragment, which shows female musicians playing instruments before the seated prince and the queen. As a notable student of Abanindranath Tagore, Gupta uses the ancient mural copy with hallmark aesthetics of the Bengal school of art. He does not replicate the original plaster-tempera texture exactly he uses Japanese-inspired watercolor wash technique favored by the nationalist art movement. It has long,flowing,rhythmic contours to define the figures,emphasizing the spiritual elegance complex hand gestures (mudras), the classic tribhanga (three-bend) postures seen in ancient indian art.