GBF Fellowship Report by Dr Soujit Das
My sojourn in Zürich started on 15th February 2026, as I landed on a Sunday morning flight from India. As it is my maiden trip to the European heartland, I was definitely excited about the experiences that were in store. On my way to the Edenstrasse apartment, I eagerly absorbed all sights, sounds and smells, with the enthusiasm of a younger self, who once ventured outside alone for the first time. The city has become my new muse. The night before my arrival, it had snowed heavily; thus, the grey sky and drizzles were on my cards. Nonetheless, the first day was quite eventful. Sonika Soni - my friend, philosopher and guide in Zürich- introduced me to the city while we sauntered in its medieval alleys. My childhood memories of tram rides in the city of joy were also relived on that day, miles away from home. Attending a wonderful Vivaldi concert at the Predigerkirche in the evening was a feast for the senses. The experience of which has stayed with me. The Swiss culinary experience at the Goldküste was another delight.
First Week
The first working week at the Museum Rietberg began with introductions to colleagues across different departments, alongside an orientation to the museum, library, and the various research facilities available within the institution. An early meeting with Dr Eberhard Fischer proved especially significant, as it encouraged me to critically reconsider the methodological framework of my project. Soon afterwards, accompanied by Dr Fischer and Sonika Soni, I visited the conservation institute SIK-ISEA for a technical viewing session of REF 50, the primary image under study, and REF 48, identified as its cross-reference. Since these two works form the core of my proposed enquiry, I had earlier requested a detailed technical examination of both paintings.
The visit to the SIK-ISEA facility was transformative, as it fundamentally challenged how I had been trained to approach and interpret images. It became evident that unlearning can often open newer and more productive avenues of learning. Under the guidance of Dr Alessandra Vicchi, I was introduced to the preliminary findings of non-invasive image analysis, particularly the material and technical dimensions of the paintings that remain otherwise invisible to the naked eye. These insights into materiality and the hidden traces of artistic idiosyncrasy offered an entirely new body of evidence to engage with critically. Simultaneously, I studied Dr Fischer’s recent seminal research on Nikka and visited the ongoing one-room Ragamala exhibition at Parkvilla, curated by Sonika Soni. Both experiences provided valuable methodological clarity regarding the integration of scientific image analysis within a larger art-historical discourse.
The following days were spent at the painting archives at Park Villa, where I learnt important museum practices from Franziska Beeli while closely studying selected paintings from the Rietberg collection. The experience offered several crucial lessons that I believe will significantly inform my future academic and curatorial pursuits. Alongside archival work, I devoted considerable time to exploring the museum’s permanent collections and viewed two exceptionally curated exhibitions at the Rietberg—Mongolia: A Journey Through Time and Japan de-luxe. During this period, I also attended exhibitions on Lygia Clark and Wolfgang Laib at the Kunsthaus Zürich, while continuing to explore several contemporary galleries across the city.
Second and Third Weeks
The second and third weeks of the fellowship were largely devoted to research at the Villa Schönberg library and through extensive digital archival work, with the primary objective of understanding the context surrounding the production and dissemination of REF 50. A central premise of my enquiry was to locate the narrative episode represented in this folio within the textual corpus of the Bhagavata Purana. Since the painting belongs to a dispersed Large Bhagavata Purana series from the Guler-Basholi region, whose folios have passed through the hands of multiple collectors and connoisseurs over time, reconstructing its provenance and dispersed visual sequence became an important aspect of the project. I initially began by closely surveying academic publications, exhibition catalogues, journals, magazines, and auction records. Drawing primarily from information gathered through these sources, I gradually started mapping and archiving the currently traceable folios of the Large Guler-Basholi Bhagavata Purana series through various online databases and digital repositories.
As part of this process, I corresponded with the image services departments at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Bonhams, Clayton-Payne, Roseberys, and several institutional collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Chester Beatty. Reconstructing the narrative sequence of the dispersed folios became crucial for interpreting the Sanskrit and Punjabi inscriptions on the versos, written respectively in Devanagari and Gurmukhi scripts. At present, I have been able to create a database comprising nearly sixty-seven paintings from the series, most of which can ultimately be traced back to the 1960 Sotheby’s auction, where approximately one hundred and fifty folios from the collection of F. K. Smith were dispersed.
One of the most striking discoveries during this phase of research was that the episode represented in REF 50 does not strictly conform to the textual narrative of commonly circulated versions of the Bhagavata Purana. Rather, unlike the majority of folios within the Large Guler-Basholi Bhagavata series, the text accompanying this image appears to borrow directly from the Mahabharata, thereby presenting an unusual case of textual interpolation. The inscriptions were translated with the assistance of several scholars, most notably the epigraphist Ramesh Gowri Raghavan, whose observations helped identify a number of anomalies and calligraphic peculiarities within the Sanskrit text. Considerable time was also devoted to reading multiple recensions of the Tenth Canto of the Bhagavata Purana alongside a range of Vaishnavite commentaries. Simultaneously, I began exploring translated versions of other Puranic texts, particularly the Agni Purana and the Vishnu Purana, as well as different recensions of the Mahabharata, especially the BORI critical edition, to understand how the narrative of Jatu-griha Dahan (Burning of the Lac House) from the Adi-Parva has been transmitted, adapted, and retold across diverse literary traditions over time.
Fourth and Fifth Weeks
During the fourth and fifth weeks of the fellowship, I continued my engagement with the primary textual sources while simultaneously expanding the visual dimension of the research through the study of other early modern regional Bhagavata Purana folios available through publications and online academic repositories. One of the key objectives during this phase was to identify possible parallels in narrative sequencing and episodic representation, while also investigating whether the specific narrative depicted in REF 50 had appeared in earlier or parallel visual traditions. Interestingly, the enquiry revealed very few direct visual precedents. Apart from the Mughal Razmnama from the Birla collection and a late seventeenth-century Bhagavata Purana series from Malwa preserved in the Kanoria collection in Patna, almost no comparable visual iterations of the episode could be located. This absence further underscores the distinctive position occupied by REF 50 within the broader art-historical landscape.
As part of the wider concerns of the project, I also began examining the representation of flames, smoke, and scenes of burning or immolation within the painterly idioms of Guler-Basholi and Kangra traditions. In order to study the iconography of fire in eighteenth-century Pahari painting, I collated and comparatively examined folios from smaller Bhagavata Purana series, Guler Ramayana manuscripts, Gita-Govinda illustrations, Bihari Satsai, Nala-Damayanti, Usha-Aniruddha, and several other related narrative cycles. This comparative visual analysis became essential in understanding recurring compositional devices, emotional registers, and symbolic articulations associated with fire imagery across the region’s visual culture. Since the project also engages with eschatological concerns, I continued to focus on literary narratives of death and destruction within the Bhagavata Purana and related texts, paying particular attention to the ways artists translated these themes into visual form. Increasingly, the enquiry evolved into an exploration of the complex intersections between text and image.
The ACSAA visual archives proved especially valuable during this stage of research, offering access to many compelling images from lesser-known and understudied collections. During this period, I also initiated contact with the curators of the Bharat Kala Bhavan regarding related material relevant to the project. Alongside this archival work, Sonika Soni and I revisited the SIK-ISEA facility for a second technical viewing session. Observing the painting under the microscope felt almost revelatory, as it exposed dimensions of the painted surface that ordinarily remain inaccessible to the naked eye. As the project progressed, the technical photographs became increasingly significant in identifying recurring brushwork patterns, pigment choices, and painterly habits. They also provided crucial insight into the architectural underdrawing of the composition, an aspect particularly relevant to the current enquiry. Beyond the demands of research, a short visit to Bern’s Old Town and Zürich’s Swiss National Museum brought me somewhat closer to understanding the historical and cultural fabric of Switzerland itself.
Sixth Week
Towards the latter part of the fifth week, my research gradually shifted towards locating and analysing references to Agni within the Bhagavata Purana and the Mahabharata, alongside other Vaishnavite literary traditions. A central concern during this phase was to understand the multiple ways in which the Vedic fire deity was conceptualised and commemorated within these theological narratives. I became particularly interested in examining Agni not merely as an elemental force, but also as a divine and active narrative presence. Questions surrounding his relationship with Krishna, as well as his interactions with the Pandavas within broader theological and literary frameworks, increasingly shaped the direction of my enquiry. These investigations continued well into the sixth week of the fellowship and gradually opened newer interpretive pathways related to ritual symbolism, destruction, divinity, and transformation within early modern visual culture.
Simultaneously, while tracing the trajectory of existing scholarship on REF 50, it became necessary to situate the painting within the broader stylistic and genealogical framework of the family atelier of Pandit Seu. I sought to understand how the artistic language associated with Pandit Seu may have informed the stylistic decisions of later generations of painters and how this painterly vocabulary evolved, transformed, and flourished within the familial workshop tradition. This also prompted a closer consideration of workshop practices and recurring visual patterns that might help identify shared modes of composition and execution. In this context, I began exploring whether traces of the stylistic sensibilities associated with Manaku or Nainsukh could be discerned within the unusual composition of REF 50, particularly in relation to figural treatment, architectural articulation, and narrative construction.
Seventh and Eighth Weeks
During the seventh week, I went to explore different places within Switzerland, visiting the historic cities of Bern, Basel, Einsiedeln, Engelberg, Interlaken, Lucerne, Lugano, Schaffhausen, Stein am Rhein, St. Gallen and St.Moritz. I also met and connected with several museum professionals working in these cities. It was a good opportunity to briefly introduce my research and the GBF Foundation to them. During the eighth week, I prepared for my presentation for the GBF Foundation trustees.
Ninth and Tenth Weeks
During the ninth and tenth weeks, I returned to the library to study the works of the first-generation masters closely, trying to read into their idiosyncrasies. I particularly tried to explore and read about the attributed works of Fattu. During my study, I have found that Fattu is possibly the most elusive painter within the Pandit Seu family line. Within the art historical discourse, owing to this long-standing confusion, several scholars as well as auction catalogues have attributed random works to Fattu, without any stylistic or historical basis. The folios of the large Bh.P series across museum and auction platforms have attributions to Fattu, which definitely need scrutiny. For instance, I now strongly believe that the attribution of the National Museum, New Delhi, Bihari’s Sat-Sai series to Fattu is somewhat problematic. I also started to investigate the works that have an overpowering presence of palace architecture. How they were approached in terms of space making. As a cross-reference, I now returned to the Bharat Kala Bhavana Ramyana drawings by Ranjha, where some compositional traits reappear. An insightful meeting with the curator of the Indian Painting section – Dr Caroline Widmer, helped me to locate a few very important textual and image sources, to understand how painters might have operated within that milieu. The discussions also led me to reassess some of my own assumptions and to bring greater objectivity. Apart from research, utilising a weekend holiday, I took a pleasure trip to Helsinki, Turku and Espoo in Finland, exploring their museums and public libraries.
Eleventh Week
During the eleventh week, I returned to the archives again to take notes through my own observations of attributed works. I focused on the construction of fire and smoke, as a painterly approach to these two elements holds many answers to my primary queries. Over the weeks, I also spent considerable time exploring the literature mentioning death and the dying, especially from a theological and social perspective. I studied the Pahari paintings from the Rietberg collection, showing mortuary rituals and narratives. I also tried to understand how Agni is theologically linked with Yama, the Lord of Death, especially in the context of the Bhagavata Purana. During this week, I had the opportunity to present my thoughts before the museum colleagues, including curators of the different departments. The questions during the session have opened some new possibilities that could be further taken up through new research projects. In the penultimate week of my fellowship, with the help of Dr Johannes Beltz, I got the opportunity to connect with and look into the South Asian special ethnographic collection of Thurgau Museum in their Frauenfeld storage. As I prepare to leave, I have already started shaping my multiple strands of thoughts and arguments into a research paper, which I hope to complete within the coming month, for further feedback from the experts.
Captions
Fig 1
Master of the first generation after Manaku & Nainsukh House of Pandavas is set on Fire Folio from “Large” Bhagavata Purana Series, Pahari region, c. 1775 CE, Pigment painting on paper, 29.5 x 41.6 cms, Museum Rietberg, REF 50, Permanent Loan from Eberhard and Barbara Fischer.
Fig 2
Painting viewing session with Dr Eberhard Fischer, Prof. Roger Fayet and Dr Karoline Beltinger at the SIK-ISEA (Swiss Institute for Art Research), Zürich. 17th February, 2026.
Fig 3
Left: REF 50 getting examined under the microscope at the SIK-ISEA, Zürich
Right: Technical image of REF 50 showing the Fe (Iron) log scale map.
Fig 4
Dr Eberhard Fischer, Dr Johannes Beltz, Sonika Soni and Dr Soujit Das posing for a photograph before Villa Wessendonck at Museum Rietberg. 13th May, 2026.
Fig 5
Dr Soujit Das in front of the Basler Münster, Basel and inside St. Johann Church, Schaffhausen, during one of his visits to these medieval Swiss towns.
