Chapter Three · The Patron's Ledger ಪೋಷಣೆ
Pigment & Patronage — A Study of the Wodeyar Atelier
The Takeaway

Gold leaf outlasts the goldsmith — the works the court protected are the works that survived.

Surviving panels by patronage tier · ca. 1790–1868
214
Village
commissions
486
Merchant
households
512
Temple
endowments
1,340
Royal
atelier
298
Unattributed
61%
of catalogued Mysore panels held under court endowment

Of every surviving gesso-and-gold panel inventoried across regional collections, three in five trace to a workshop sustained by Wodeyar court patronage — the rest scatter thin across temple, merchant and village hands.

This is the Mysore Gesso Gold Painting design system, applied by Curio Design — a design-style library for AI agents. Full Mysore Gesso Gold Painting guide → designbycurio.com/learn/mysore-traditional-gold-painting