GANESHA ENTHRONEDKANGRA, CIRCA 1820 Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; verso with two-line devanagari inscription: 'sorta vidhyan haran ganrai moosh kavahin gaj badan/Ganpati charan manayatve kaam kachu ki jiye'; 'Sorta Vidhyan Haran Ganra/...Make offerings at the feet of Ganesh before starting any work'. Image: 8 1/2 x 11 1/2 in. (21.5 x 29.3 cm) Always a charming and humorous image, Riddhi and Buddhi, who personify prosperity and success, work a flywhisk above Lord Ganesha and offer him a large platter of sweets. He reaches greedily for them despite already possessing a tray. They are so abundant, in fact, that his little rat vahana happily gobbles up those toppled to the floor. Such depictions of Ganesha typically serve as invocational frontispieces for illustrated manuscripts (cf. Poster, Realms of Heroism , Brooklyn, p. 255, no. 207). A very closely related painting was sold at Sotheby's, London, 5 July 1982, lot 56. Also see Sotheby's, London, 10 June 1983, lot 60; Sotheby's, New York, 23 March 2000, lot 222; 20 March 2001, lot 13; and , London, 7 October 2010, lot 366; Sotheby's, New York, 21 March 2019, lot 974 and another sold at Christie's, New York, 14-28 September 2022, lot 104. Provenance: Private Californian Collection since mid-1980s