The large painted cloth hangings known as picchavai were produced in Nathdwara, a town in Rajasthan, western India, and were displayed during annual Hindu festivals celebrating the cult of Krishna.
These fragile hangings were frequently replaced and began to be keenly collected during the early years of western tourism in the 1960s. A sale of European & Asian Works of Art held by Matthew Barton on May 22-23 at Olympia Auctions in west Kensington, London, will include a group consigned by a retired London couple who ran an art gallery in Hong Kong from the 1960s-80s.