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
214Village commissions
486Merchant households
512Temple endowments
1,340Royal atelier
298Unattributed
61%
of catalogued Mysore panelsheld 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.