A LADY ON A TERRACE WITH TWO MAIDS, MUGHAL, CIRCA 1740

Estimate

15,000 - 25,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Opaque watercolour and gold on paper
9 x 5 3/4 inches

Opaque watercolour and gold on paper; mounted on an album page decorated with floral borders; the reverse with a page of calligraphy in a fine naskhi script, floral borders

Catalogue Note

This graceful but sensual portrayal of a lady with her female attendants on a terrace is an elegant example of the polished refinement of Mughal painting in the first half of the 18th century. An almost identical miniature is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (see Topsfield 2008, no.56, pp.120-121), and the same composition can be seen in other versions, including a drawing formerly in the Stuart Cary Welch Collection and donated to the Harvard Art Museums (2009.202.14, see Welch and Masteller 2004, no.32, pp.116-117), and one in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (see Beach 1979, no.25).

The inscriptions in the lower left and right corners of the present painting appear to be inventory numbers, rather than dates. The one on the left reads 1147, the one on the right reads 1413.