Pahari Paintings

Pahari paintings from the Horst Metzger collection, now in Museum Rietberg Zurich, are outstanding works by Indian masters who worked in the sub-Himalayan region between 1680 and 1850. This lavishly illustrated catalog of the works, which owes itself to a collaboration, yet again, between Prof. B.N. Goswamy and Dr Eberhard Fischer, is filled both with scholarly authority and poetic utterance. The passion with which Horst Metzger assembled this distinguished collection is matched by the text, for it throws open windows to a world of reflection and delight, close observation and soaring imagination. Together, the two scholars have, in earlier years, authored Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India (1980) which accompanied one of the most celebrated and groundbreaking exhibitions in the field. Three decades later (2011), they were together again – along with Dr Milo Beach – editing and writing for the monumental, two-volume, Masters of Indian Painting: 1100-1900 which served as a guide to another path-breaking exhibition, shown at the Museum Rietberg Zurich and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Contents: B.N.Goswamy: Horst Metzger – The Collector; Catalogue; The Horst Metzger Collection in the Museum Rietberg; Bibliography; Ludwig Habighorst: Horst Metzger – My friend, the Collector.