Two women in red and black bind the bride's hair in lamplit dark

Against a near-black green ground, a young woman in brilliant vermilion sits with her knees drawn up while a companion shrouded in black leans close behind her, working a golden ornament into her hair. The bride's head turns in profile, a white fan-shaped leaf resting at her hip, and the red pleats of her skirt pool around her feet like a banana leaf. Painted at Simla in 1937, in the dark, lamplit register Sher-Gil developed after her South Indian journey — two figures, two colours, and silence.

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) was born in Budapest to a Sikh aristocrat and a Hungarian opera singer, trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and returned to India in 1934 determined to paint the country's people rather than its picturesque surface. In the seven years left to her she fused the flat colour and frontal stillness of Ajanta murals and Pahari miniatures with the Post-Impressionist lessons of Gauguin and Cézanne, producing the foundation of modern Indian painting. She died in Lahore at twenty-eight; her work is declared a National Art Treasure by the Government of India and is held chiefly by the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.