Ascetics preparing and smoking opium outside a rural dwelling in India. Gouache painting by Kavala, 18--.

[Udaipur?], [between 1800 and 1899?]

1 painting : gouache, with gold ; border 22 x 15.4 cm

Inscription in ink on the verso transliterated as follows: "Banou Chatara Kuwala ka hatha no amaldaar ki surat so led(?) chae" (Portrait of the Amaldaars made by the hands of the artist Kuwala), i.e. attributing the painting to Kuwala (Kawala)

By Kavala (or Kawala), the son of the painter Bagta and the brother of Chokha (the latter active 1799-1822)

Milo Cleveland Beach, Bagta and Chokha: master artists at Devgarh, Artibus Asiae supplementum XLVI, Zurich: Museum Rietberg, 2005

Wellcome Collection 12002i

Exhibited in “Ayurvedic Man: Encounters with Indian medicine” at Wellcome Collection, 16 November 2017 – 8 April 2018