A EUROPEAN DANDY AND A FEMALE COMPANION IN A GARDEN, INDIA, DECCAN, GOLCONDA, CIRCA 1660-80

Ex-private collection, Germany.

Acquired from Galerie Boisserée, Cologne, circa 1960s/70s (label on reverse of frame).

This scene of a European dandy pouring wine in the company of a female companion is painted in a style very close to that of Rahim Deccani, an artist active probably at Golconda in the third quarter of the seventeenth century. The figures are very similar in type, pose and dress to those in two works by Rahim Deccani, both of which feature scenes of male and female figures in garden settings. One is a painting in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (66.1, see Haidar and Sardar 2015, cat.143, p.249; Haidar 2004, fig.8, p.181; Leach 1995, vol.II, p.952, Zebrowski 1983, no.176, p.204); the other is a painted casket in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (851-1889, Haidar and Sardar 2015, cat.144, p.250; Haidar 2004, figs.5-7, pp.179-180; Zebrowski 1983, nos.169-174, pp.202-3, and the V&A website). Specifically, the two figures here are very close to the two figures on the right in the Dublin painting - the European man (or possibly woman in male costume, as suggested by Leach) pouring wine, and the lady under the tree at far right. Indeed, the female in the present painting is almost identical in composition to the lady under the tree in the Dublin painting, with her right arm entwined behind the branch of the tree while she turns to offer food to a creature, in this case a peacock and in the Dublin painting a deer. The fact that both of these actions by the female figure relate to Ragamala iconography may be intentional. The present figures are also related to two on the London casket: the seated Orpheus-like European playing the flute,(Haidar 2004, fig.7, p.180; Zebrowski 1983, fig.174, p.203), whose hair and details of costume are very close to the present example, and the female under the tree with a pair of cranes, on the opposite side of the casket (Haidar 2004, fig.5, p.179; Zebrowski 1983, fig.171, p.202). A further link is found in the similar way the artist has painted the hands of the figures in the present work and the Dublin painting, with very slender elongated fingers.

There is a certain air of gallantry about the man in the present work, who is in the process of doffing his hat while offering wine to his female companion, no doubt in an effort to tempt her away from her focus on the peacock. This is a variation on the scene in the Dublin painter, where the dandy is turned away from the lady under the tree and offers the wine to the seated prince, who is the focus of the composition.

There has been some debate as to whether Rahim Deccani was working in his native Deccan or in Kashmir or Iran, or in different places at different stages of his career. Another artist of Indian origin was also working in this idiosyncratic style at the end of the seventeenth century. Named Manohar (not to be confused with the earlier Mughal artist of the same name), he painted a small number of lacquer works (see Haidar 2004).