A DEVOTEE AND A WHITE-CLAD SADHU'S GATHERING IN THE WILDERNESS Kangra, Pahari School, Himalayan Foothills, Northern India, ca. 1840 – 1860 Opaque pigments heightened with little gold on wove paper, the horizontal-format composition depicting a white-clad hermit or sadhu seated cross-legged on a river bank in conversation with a yellow-clad devotee, both figures wearing mala rosary necklaces with rudraksha beads, usually associated with the cult of the Hindu God Shiva, the encrusted bazubands, gold bangles and earrings indicating the high-class status of both sitters, the yellow-clad devotee possibly a ruler who renounced of his worldly possessions (sannyasin), behind them a gazelle and two tigers just by the river banks, and lush lotus flowers floating in the river in the foreground, set within typical Kangra Pahari concentric decorative borders with white flower scroll on cobalt blue ground and dark red rules on light pink ground, mounted, glazed and framed, 26.5cm x 33.5cm including the frame.