y disengaging a lady's dress and gazing at her
with passion-haunted eyes. The poem on the reverse runs as follows:

Showing her a beautiful girdle
Drawing on a fair panel with red chalk
Putting a bracelet on her wrists
And laying a necklace on her breasts
Winning the confidence of the fawn-eyed lady of fair brows
He slyly loosens the knot of her skirt
Below the girdle-stead, with naughty hand.[99]

In another picture, he appears as 'a gallant well versed in the ways of
courtesans,' the dreaded seducer of inexperienced girls. He is now shown
approaching a formal pavilion, set in a lonely field. Inside the pavilion
is the lovely object of his attack, sitting with a companion, knowing that
willy-nilly she must shortly yield yet timidly making show of maidenly
reserve.

His swollen heart
Knows neither shame nor pity
Nor any fear of anger
How can such a tender bud as I
Be cast into his hands today?[100]

In yet a third picture, he is portrayed standing outside a house while the
lady, the subject of his passions, sits within. He is once again 'a false
gallant,' his amorous intentions being shown by the orange, a conventional
symbol for the breasts, poised lightly in his hand. As the lady turns to
greet him, she puts a dot in the circle which she has just drawn on the
wall--a gesture which once again contains a hint of sex. On the picture's
reverse the poem records a _conversation galante_.

'Beloved, what are you doing
With a golden orange in your hand?'
So said the moon-faced one
Placing a dot
On the bright circles
Painted in the house. [101]

In other pictures, a clown or jester appears, introducing a witty joking
element into the scene and thus presenting Krishna's attitude to love as
all-inclusive.

From 1693, the year of Raja Kirpal's death, painting at Basohli
concentrated mainly on portraying rulers and on illustrating _ragas_ and
_raginis_--the poems which interpreted the moods and spirit of music. The
style maintained its fierce intensity but there was now a gradual rounding
of faces and figures, leading to a slight softening of the former brusque
vigour. Devotion to Krishna does not seem to have bulked quite so largely
in the minds of later Basohli rulers, although the cult itself may well
have continued to exert a strong emotional appeal. In 1730, a Basohli
princess, the lady Manaku, commissioned a set of illustrations to the
_Gita Govinda_ and Krishna's power to e