Arts flourished in Mysore under the reign of Maharaja Krishna Wadiyar III who was put on the throne by the British in 1799. Artists working in Mysore developed a very particular style, remaining away from Western influence and Company school paintings. Until the Maharaja‘s death in 1868, a number of lavishly illustrated manuscripts were produced, similar to this Devimahatmya from which this bifolio and the preceding lot (lot 549) come from. Two important examples, a Ramayana in several volumes and the Shritattvanidhi are now in the Mysore Palace Sarasvati Bhandar Library. Although slightly later, the San Diego Museum of Art holds a finely illustrated copy of the Bhagavata Purana, painted in a similar style to the present folios (http://www.sdmart.org/collections/Asia/item/1990.1402).

Other folios from this manuscript is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.88.29.1a-b http://collections.lacma.org/node/170628 ), the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Rietberg Museum of Art (RVI 914). See for instance Fischer, Eberhard Gottinnen - Indische Bilder im Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 2005, cat 37, p 68. And Francesca Galloway ed., J.P. Losty, A Prince’s Eye, London, 2013, cat.46, pp.162-163.