Mother and Child

A portrait of a richly attired woman seated on a throne set on an open terrace under the shade of a leafy mango tree with a child on her lap. She steadies the child with one hand and holds a ripe mango in the other. Her serene gaze is directed not at her child but out towards the viewer. The scene is set beside a lake with rolling hills and a shaded horizon in the background.

The present lot is an Indian artist’s interpretation of a European Madonna and Child portrait. Mughal artists had been exposed to Christian iconography since the arrival of the first Jesuit priests to Akbar’s court in 1580. The books and engravings of Christian subjects that they brought with them as missionary material captured the attention of the court artists. The use of Christian themes by Indian artists became widespread during Akbar’s reign and persisted into later periods, portraits of Madonnas being a particularly popular subject. The artist adds a quintessentially Indian touch to the present mother and child image by introducing the mango, a symbol traditionally associated with fertility in Indian art.

As the power of the Mughal court waned in the early 18th century, artists migrated to other regional courts that had sprung up across north India filling the power vacuum left by the Mughals. Among these was the court of Oudh with its capital at Lucknow. The capital moved to the city of Faizabad in 1765 due to political disturbances but was reinstated back in Lucknow in 1775. During this period Faizabad attracted a number of European travelers who left their imprint upon its cultural activities and brought new influences to bear upon the style of miniature painting in practice there.

Paintings following the Muighal métier that were produced in these regional courts are termed Provincial Mughal and they bear characteristics of late Mughal works, namely carefully constructed and formalized compositions set within vast expansive backgrounds and crisply defined contours and details, as seen in the present lot. The contrast between the brilliant colors of the mother’s rich, brocaded robes and the white and gray accents of the background as well as the wisps of gold and red in the horizon, highlight the tonal qualities of the painting.

Compare the treatment of the Madonna’s full, rounded face with a painting of a European Princess with Attendants also pictured on a pavilion adjoining a lake, from Faizabad, in the collection of the India Office Library; see Toby Falk and Mildred Archer, Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, London, 1981, no. 242. Also see ibid. no. 244 for another portrait of a European lady.