Watercolour on Paper

10 x 8.5 In.

Rendered in soft washes and minimal line, this work was likely executed in the 1920s or 1930s, Lady with Flower reflects her synthesis of pata folk traditions, Japanese wash techniques, and devotional iconography. The woman—clad in a light green saree and holding a lotus-like bloom—evokes what Devi once described as “pictures I have seen in dreams... the greater part of my paintings I have ‘found’ in my dreams.”

Though her work drew on mythological themes, this painting belongs to a group of images representing women in poised introspection within domestic interiors; echoing her own confinement to the women’s quarters (zenana) during her early life. Their steady gazes and stylised profiles became hallmarks of her style. As Stella Kramrisch observed in 1927, “They are messengers from the world within... it is through these eyes, long and steady, yet alert like wagtails, that their thoughts and feelings are sent out and enliven the picture.”

Devi’s technical approach—starting with red or black outlines, then washing pigment into the forms and dipping the paper into water—produced the soft tonalities visible here. This method, practiced in domestic intervals between supervising the household, gave rise to a body of work that was at once modern and intimate.

In her own words: “They [my brothers] work in the midst of the hustle of the outside world, and I work in an inner world. My pictures don’t reflect their influence—they are entirely different.” This distinction was both formal and ideological. Unlike the nationalist historicism of the Bengal School, her work distilled lived interiority—quiet, solitary, feminine.

Though she exhibited widely, including at the Bauhaus-linked 1922 Calcutta show and in a major 1927 London exhibition, Devi’s practice remained deeply personal. Works such as Lady with Flower reflect not simply a revival of folk technique but a rare assertion of female authorship in the visual field of early 20th-century South Asia.

Provenance -  Originally acquired from Maitreya/Kishore Chatterjee

Exhibited - Brunei Gallery, SOAS. Painting Freedom: Indian Modernism and Its Three Rebels. Curated by Dr Caterina Corni and Crispin Branfoot