Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs and Carpets
Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs and Carpets
Auction Closed
October 27, 03:41 PM GMT
Estimate
25,000 - 35,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
gouache heightened with gold on paper, inner border comprising gold scrolling floral motifs on buff ground, outer narrow gold border, polychrome rules, with wide gold-flecked margins, the upper margin with Persian inscription in black nasta'liq script ''tasvir-e hosn-e 'alam kayfi vaqt-e shab'' ('Image of the beauty of the world intoxicated at night'), the reverse with a Persian quatrain in black nasta'liq script by Muhammad Amin al-Mashhadi, the lower margin with old typed sale label
painting 24.2 by 18.5cm; leaf 49 by 33.7cm.
The present painting depicts a lady with her arms around two attendants, slowly making her way across a palace terrace towards her bedchamber, on a moonlit night. They are accompanied by musicians and one of the attendants is carrying a wine flask. The painting illustrates a popular scene among Mughal artists in the seventeenth century. A painting from the second quarter of the seventeenth century in the Victoria and Albert Museum depicts the Mughal prince Murad Baksh awaiting a similarly escorted lady (Archer 1960, pl.46), whilst a similar scene of a slightly later date is in the National Museum, New Delhi (Goswamy 1986, no.67). Another closely comparable painting dated to circa 1650-60 is published in Falk and Digby, 1979, no. 31. This iconography continued with Mughal and Provincial Mughal artists into the next century. For other similar terrace scenes dating to the mid-eighteenth century, see Ray 2008, no.61; Hurel 2010, no.160, p.126; and a late eighteenth-century painting in Poster 1994, no.55, pp.99-100.
A further painting from the same album as the present lot is in the Chester Beatty Library. Attributed to the Lucknow artist Mihr Chand and dated to circa 1770, it depicts a kneeling figure of the Sufi saint Khwaja Muin al-Din Chisti under a scalloped archway. The portrait is on an album page with blue floral borders, similar wide gold-flecked margins and inscriptive cartouche in the upper margin (acc. no.34.12, published in Markel and Gude 2010, p.79, no.10).
The calligraphic panel on the reverse of the album page contains Persian quatrains, two of which are benedictions to a king. The panel is signed by Muhammad Amin Mashhadi, an Iranian calligrapher. Active in the mid-seventeenth century, Mashhadi is best known as the scribe of the Padshahnameh manuscript in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, in 1067 AH/1656 AD (see Beach and Koch 1997, p.158).