Mithila painting from Bihar and the Nepal Terai, a women's tradition passed within families, moved from house walls to paper in the 1960s. Every contour is drawn twice with hatching between, no ground is left empty, and fish, lotus, sun and birds fill the gaps inside a many-banded border.
The pigments were kitchen and field: vermilion, turmeric, indigo, lampblack in cow dung, rice paste for white, laid with twigs, fingers and nib pens. Horror vacui is a rule, not a habit. The style now holds a geographical indication and crosses the caste lines it once did not.
The border and infill motifs are cached once. The figure is filled flat with a dotted shirt repeat and outlined double, with the characteristic almond eyes. Every motif on the plate is our own drawing; none copies a named artist's pattern.
No Kohbar, the wedding-chamber image, and no named artist's motif. With thanks to the women painters of Mithila, whose tradition this is.