Indian painting?

Hello
I bought this painting in a flea market. It is inserted between two glasses and has writings on the back. It seems Indian to me. What do you say? What era does it belong to?
Giuseppe

 

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that's neat !!
We need a translator...

 

Lovely painting, Giuseppe. They call this Mughal style, but most were made long after the Mughal period.

But from which of the many languages written in Devanagari script? It doesn't look like Hindi or Sanskrit to me. Not that it is likely to be in Sanskrit, but just as an Indian reference.

 

I would suspect that at least part of that writing is upside down, since if one draws a line to guide their writing, they usually write on top of the line, not underneath it. Still can't make out what it says, but I can only stand on my head for a short period of time....

And are you referring to Indian, as from India, or Indian as in indigenous people of the Western Hemisphere? It does resemble, a bit, the "flat style" painting taught by Dorothy Dunn at the Santa Fe Indian School, ca. 1930s.

 

In most Devanagari script forms the letters have a line at the top, like this: देवनागरी
Most Indian languages are written in Devanagari script, some outside India as well.

 

looks okay to me. the main part in Sanskrit is below the line, the accents and added syllables are atop. not sure though if it's Sanskrit because that's not used anymore.

 

Thanks everyone for the help.
Based on your advice and research done on the internet it seems that it may be a Mughal painting from the 17th or early 18th century.

 

I'd check if the numeration on the back does correspond to Ayats or Surahs that were noted by an individual believer.

 

They continued painting in this style, and I suspect this is later. Is there a museum with an Asian department near you, where you can take it?

 

Sanskrit is still used, it is even spoken by a very small minority in India. It is still written in all Hindu regions and communities across the world.
But as I said before, this is unlikely to be Sanskrit. Many languages are written in Devanagari script.

 

This would also explain why the owner wanted to make the back visible. It is important, as sacred writing, as the painting.

 

No, there is no Asian museum nearby. There are some auction houses with specialists in the field. I will try to contact them.

 

Got a decent Indian restaurant near?

 

I doubt a painting with this subject has sacred writing on the back. Surahs would have been written in Perso-Arabic script, not Devanagari.

The back could have been shown to make it more intriguing to a buyer.

 

Those circled in red are numbers. Could they be beginning of paragraphs or some verse?
The box in blue is to show that it is written on half a side and some of the letters and words are incomplete or getting cut of

 

Can you make anything of the text, Roshan?

 

no. Cant read it. I can read each letter but the words make no sense at all.
May be they use devnagiri script to write another language. Not sure.

 

It is used for many regional languages, so it is always difficult to know which.

 

But not really sure this helps......