MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (1913-2011)
PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE COLLECTION, ENGLAND
MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (1913-2011)

Duldul

Details
MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN (1913-2011)
Duldul
signed in Hindi and dated '67 (upper right); further inscribed and titled 'B-15 / DUL-DUL' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
30 x 48 in. (76.2 x 121.9 cm.)
Painted in 1967
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist
Thence by descent
Literature
R. Bartholomew and S.S. Kapur, Husain, New York, 1972, pl. 163 (illustrated)

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Alicia Churchward
Alicia Churchward

Lot Essay

One of the most dominant and enduring motifs in Maqbool Fida Husain’s wide ranging body of work is the figure of the horse. “Husain's painted horses do not just bear majestic stateliness and striking beauty but also come alive in every mood, situation and form. Their forceful movement conveys so much that it carries us away with it.” (R. Siddiqui, In Conversation with Husain Paintings, New Delhi, 2001, p. 112)

The horse became a central part of Husain’s oeuvre in the early 1950s, when he first painted the animal. His inspiration to paint horses was derived from a combination of sources, notably his childhood in Indore where he spent time with his grandfather’s friend who worked in a stable as a farrier, and later, his travels in China and Italy, where he studied Tang pottery horses and discovered the equestrian sculptures of the artist Marino Marini (1901-1980).

However, in the case of the present lot, what is likely to have been more influential is an event Husain witnessed for the first time as a fifteen year old boy. Once a year during Muharram, when the religious mourned the death of Imam Hussain, they would carry tazias or replicas of his tomb with figures of his faithful horse Duldul in a procession through the streets. The artist’s “earliest memories of artistic participation were with the making of the tazias in Indore where twenty foot high effigies of horses were carried in procession during the final day of Muharram, as symbols of the martyrdom of Imam Hussain the grandson of the Prophet. These gigantic horses signified all the valour of the warrior for the young boy and they emerged in some of his earliest paintings as animated, powerful animals.” (Y. Dalmia, ‘M.F. Husain: Reinventing India’, Early Masterpieces: 1950s-70s, Asia House, London, 2006, unpaginated)

In this painting, Husain returns to his memories of the tazias and their heavily decorated effigies of Duldul to explore the equine figure as representative of courage and vitality. Painted against a glowing orange ground, the white stallion with one of its front legs raised seems ready for battle against the abstract forms engulfed in dark shadows on the right, evocative of the unknown and the unenlightened. The artist approximates the animal’s colourful saddle and ornamentation with thick brushstrokes, but instead of a rider, he paints Duldul with an open palm on his back. In the gesture of abhaya mudra, a motif that recurred frequently in Husain’s oeuvre, this palm is symbolic of fearlessness and renunciation. Duldul thus symbolises the victory of the courageous, and the eventual triumph of light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance.

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