🧾 DETAILS
Artist: Unknown Patua artist (Bengal)
Year: c. 1960s–1990s (consistent with McCutchion collection)
Medium: Pigment on paper (scroll painting fragment)
Dimensions: Not specified
Category: Patua / Bengal scroll painting
Room: Origins / Narrative Systems
🧠 DESCRIPTION
This work presents a narrative scene from the Ramayana, rendered in the Patua scroll painting tradition of Bengal. The composition is organized in stacked registers, with multiple episodes unfolding vertically within a single frame.
Figures are stylized and repeated across scenes, framed by a decorative border. The multi-headed figure of Ravana appears alongside other characters, while surrounding panels depict different moments from the narrative.
🔍 SIGNIFICANCE
- Representative example of Ramayana storytelling in Patua scroll tradition
- Demonstrates multi-scene narrative within a single image
- Uses repetition and structure to organize complex storytelling
- Reflects the role of Patua artists as storytellers combining image and oral tradition
- Provides an early model of sequential narrative comparable to later visual media
✍️ INTERPRETATION
The image constructs a sequential narrative within a unified surface, where different episodes coexist rather than unfold linearly. The repetition of figures and gestures creates a visual rhythm that guides the viewer through the story.
Rather than isolating a single event, the work presents a narrative system in which actions, characters, and consequences are interconnected. The presence of Ravana introduces themes of conflict, power, and morality central to the Ramayana, while the structure of the image emphasizes continuity over sequence.
🧩 POSITION IN THE COLLECTION
This work plays a key role within Room 1.
It functions as:
- A structured narrative system embedded within a single image
- A cultural anchor linking myth, storytelling, and visual form
- A precursor to later narrative systems such as comics and manga (Room 3)
This work structures myth as a visual sequence.
📚 PROVENANCE
Collected as part of the publication:
Patuas and Patua Art in Bengal
David McCutchion & Suhrid K. Bhowmik
Firma KLM, 1999
Original scroll collected by David McCutchion (1960s).
This work was included as part of the book’s distributed Patua paintings.
McCutchion’s collection later formed part of the holdings of the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry.