The illustrious 18th century Pahari artist Nainsukh of Guler has pride of place in a collection of drawings and some paintings that are being prepared for an exhibition — Drawings from Indian courts — that will help to commemorate this year's Asian Art Fair in London.

‘Sunbird’ from the Impey Album by Shaikh Zayn al-Din (Company School, Calcutta, 1779 AD)

An illustration from Gita Govinda (1775 AD)

Nainsukh, who flourished under the patronage of Raja Balwant Singh of Jasrota, is prized for his highly individual style, described as both intimate and spacious and extremely influential on subsequent traditions of drawing and painting in north India.

His drawings, frequently enlivened by a monochrome wash, are said to lend the compositions a dreamlike and monochrome quality. It was a style perpetuated by his family and subsequent generations of artists.

Guler painters like Nainsukh were Hindu artists trained in the Mughal style who sought the patronage of the Rajas of Guler in the Kangra Valley. Examples of Guler art are available at the Chandigarh Museum.

Among the drawings attributed to Nainsukh's family is a haunting sketch from the Gita Govinda series, showing Krishna making a mark with musk on Radha's brow, that will be part of the exhibition entitled, 'Drawings from Indian courts', that is being promoted by London art dealer Sam Fogg. Two drawings by Nainsukh himself, valued at a minimum of £6,000 each (Rs 4.5 lakh), will also be on show.

Among the other unusual items is a book on dream interpretation, illustrated with 71 drawings in a style influenced by the work of Nainsukh, executed in Kangra or Guler between 1770 and 1800. A spokesman for Fogg explained to The Tribune that the predictions in Sanskrit and accompanying illustrations are probably the work of an astrologer attached to the court of one of the rajas of Kangra.

Some of the exhibition's other miniature drawings dating from the 16th to 19th centuries, and not seen in public for many years, are from the Mughal, Deccan and Rajput courts that have long been recognised by scholars and connoisseurs such as Stuart Cary Welch as an art form characterised by a particular delicacy and frequent humorous touches. They often have an immediacy that disappears in finished miniature paintings.

Among the earliest drawings in the exhibition is of a female allegorical figure of the type produced by the Mughal court artist Basawan. Such figures were inspired by European engravings and reflected the eclectic cultural milieu of the court of Emperor Akbar (1556-1605 AD). Among other Mughal drawings is a delightful 17th-century depiction of a gathering of ascetics and worshippers, including a clearly inebriated youth, at a Shiva temple. Depictions of Hindu ascetics were a favourite subject of Mughal artists and severalof the figures in this drawing appear to have been modelled on works by court artists such as Manohar and Sankar.

As with paintings, the drawings produced at the courts of the Deccani sultanates in the late 16th and 17th centuries frequently reflected a taste for the colourful and bizarre. Among the drawings produced for these courts, and on display in this exhibition, are a depiction of an elegantly attired prince, with a horse being led by an attendant, and a curious portrait with marbled borders of an old man holding a lamb in his hands.

In the princely kingdoms of Rajasthan, and from the 17th century onwards, there emerged local traditions of drawing and painting that were to various degrees influenced by the Mughal and Deccani court styles. The state of Bikaner was home to a refined tradition of painting and drawing which reflected the ruler's close ties to their Mughal overlords. A courtly drawing of a princess with maidservants on a terrace has been attributed to master artist Ustad Rashid who was active at the court of Bikaner at the turn of the 18th century.

A highly distinctive, local idiom of painting and drawing emerged in the kingdom of Kotah in Rajasthan. As was often the case, Kotah artists seem to have been more experimental and expressive in their drawings than paintings. Among the drawings from Kotah is a section of an unusual scroll depicting Maharoa Ram Singh's (1827-1866) artillery being pulled by a procession of camels and horses. As well as this, preparatory sketches and leaves from artists' sketchbooks, including a study entirely dedicated to feet and toes, are some of the most characteristic items in the exhibition.

The political domination of the British over India in the 18th and 19th century led to the emergence of different schools of drawing and painting that adapted European subjects to local styles. A 19th-century drawing from Jaipur of the orangery in Versailles is clearly an adaptation of a European print imbued with Rajasthani exuberance.

A particular style of paintings and drawings made by Indian artists for British patrons, called the "Company" style after the East India Company, is also represented in this exhibition. A watercolour from one of the most celebrated series of Company paintings, an album of flora and fauna commissioned by the Chief Justice of Bengal and his wife, Lord and Lady Impey in Calcutta in the last quarter of the 18th century is of particular interest. This painting, of a sunbird perched on a flowering branch, is by Shaikh Zayn al-Din, the most accomplished of the artists who worked on the album, and who had trained as a court painter in the Mughal tradition.

Also on display is a palm leaf from Orissa with text and illustrations from the Ramayana, which represents the culmination of an Indian palm leaf manuscript tradition with roots in the medieval period.