Sadhu

A sadhu with a flowing white beard and tilak, wrapped turban and saffron robe. Original watercolour on paper, signed, framed and ready to hang.

He looks straight out of the paper, unsmiling, with the vertical white tilak of a Vaishnavite mark running from the bridge of his nose into a wrapped white turban. Above it, a tall red cap rises out of the cloth in bands of terracotta, catching light along its ridges.

The beard is the most worked passage in the painting — long, full and rendered in fine individual strokes over a soft grey-white wash, each hair drawn rather than blocked in. It falls the length of his chest and covers most of the saffron robe beneath it.

The face is built from warm ochre and terracotta washes, with dark, direct eyes under heavy brows the only sharp feature against the softness of the beard and turban. A thin black cord hangs at the neck, disappearing into the robe.

Behind him, the background is left loose and atmospheric — grey-brown washes pooling and bleeding into the paper, with the faint ink trace of a serpent barely visible in the upper right, more suggested than drawn. Nothing is resolved there; all the attention has gone into the face.

Watercolour is well suited to a subject like this. The beard depends on the paper’s white showing through, and the soft bleed of the background could not be achieved in an opaque medium.

Suited to a puja room, a study, a meditation space, an entrance hall or a collector’s wall.

Original watercolour on paper, signed by the artist. Supplied mounted and framed under glass with a certificate of authenticity. One of a kind — no reproductions of this work are sold.

Specifications:

• Subject: Portrait of a sadhu
• Medium:  Watercolour on paper
• Genre: Portrait, devotional
• Type: Original, one of a kind
• Size: 16.6 x 11.7 in
• Orientation: Landscape/li>
• Framing:  Mounted, framed under glass
• Signed: Yes, by the artist
• Included: Certificate of authenticity