Parsi Lady
| Support Type: | Canvas |
| Paint Type: | Oil Paint |
| Current Location: | The painting is currently at a private collection. |
| Location History: | The painting was created in Mumbai,Maharashtra,India in 1920 and was later brought to Christie's,New York,USA on March 31,2005 for an auction. |
This portrait of a Parsi lady was painted by Manchershaw Fakirjee Pithawalla in 1920 and he signed the work along with mentioning the date with his own hand in the corner. Pithawalla spent much of his career painting people from Bombay’s Parsi community, capturing merchants, lawyers, and their families in their finest clothes and jewellery. He was trained under a British teacher at the J.J. School of Art, and the training shows in his brushwork - smooth, careful, almost photographic in the way skin and fabric come alive on canvas. This closeness to European academic realism earned him comparisons to old masters like Velasquez. The lady’s expression in the portrait feels calm and composed, painted with real attention to light falling across her face and the folds of her clothing. The work does not appear to be made in rush. It has the quiet formality typical of portrait commissions from that era, when sitting for a painting was itself a mark of status.