An illustration from the 'First' Baburnama of 1589, mounted on a leaf from the Farhang-i Jahangiri of 1608: Babur attempts to defend Akhsi, India, Mughal, late 16th-early 17th century

John Frederick Lewis, Jr., was a lawyer and philanthropist whose family were leading figures in the cultural life of Philadelphia. In 66 years, his accomplishments and service to the City of Philadelphia left an enduring impact. Board Memberships included the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (President 1944-58), the Academy of Music, The Free Library of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, Board of Libraries, the University Museum, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Zoological Society, Fairmount Park Art Association and many others. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in February 1924, married Ada H. Haeseler on 30 June 1925 and with her had three children. He loved collecting quality objects and attended many auctions - over fifty Parke Bernet catalogues with careful notes were kept, which were a great resource in the research and cataloguing of this distinguished group of objects. Ranging from jades, porcelains, bronzes, books, and illuminated manuscripts the depth of his curiosity, interest and passion in the arts of Asia were evident in his collection.

This illustration is from a well-known dispersed manuscript of the Baburnama, the autobiographical account written by the first Mughal emperor Babur. The scene depicted in the present painting is that of Babur attempting to defend the city of Akhsi in Ferghana (modern day Uzbekistan). The event took place between 7 July 1502 and 26 June 1503. The two lines of Persian in nasta'liq script in the two text panels on the painting reflect the illustrated scene in Babur's own words, translated as follows:

"I got up quickly and shot one arrow off. My squire, Kahil (lazy) had a weakly pony; he got off and led it to me." (translated by Beveridge 1979, p.174).

Akbar, the grandson of Babur, asked for the text of the Baburnama to be translated from the original Chagatai Turkish into Persian by ‘Abd al-Rahim, his khan-i khanan. Abu'l Fazl, Akbar’s prime minister, recorded the moment in November 1589 when the translated manuscript was presented to Akbar "On this day Khan-i khanan produced before the august Presence the Memoirs of Firdaus Makani [the Dweller in Paradise, i.e. Babur] which he had rendered into Persian out of the Turki and received great praise." (Stronge 2002, p.88). Artists in the imperial Mughal atelier began work on an illustrated version of the manuscript. The present painting belongs to this first illustrated version of the Baburnama. At least three additional illustrated versions were produced for Akbar in the next ten years. The British Library has a version dateable to the early 1590s. A third incomplete version is divided between the Moscow State Museum of Eastern Cultures and the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. A fourth version is in the National Museum, New Delhi.

The first illustrated Baburnama is originally thought to have contained 193 illustrations. Nineteen illustrations are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, hence the manuscript is sometimes referred to as the 'South Kensington Baburnama'. Other leaves are in the British Museum, London, the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and various private collections. Further leaves have been sold in these rooms, 26 April 1991, lot 64, 20 March 1997, lot 10, 25 March 1999, lot 201 and 23 March 2000, lot 192, 8 June 2000, lot 4.

The present illustration has been mounted on a leaf from the Farhang-i Jahangiri, the royal dictionary written for the Mughal Emperor Jahangir by an Iranian scholar Jamal al-Din Inju Shirazi (d.1626). Inju had begun work on the dictionary when he entered the service of Akbar in 1596-97. Comprising twenty-four chapters, it took Inju twelve years to complete and was finally presented to Jahangir in 1608. The text was written in fine black and red nasta’liq script, and the distinctive feature of the leaves are the wide outer borders. The elegant gold decoration of the borders includes birds and animals (as seen in the present lot), mythical creatures, single figures of ascetics and huntsmen, Indian noblemen and even Europeans, all depicted amidst scrolling foliage.

By the early twentieth century, this Baburnameh manuscript was with the Parisian collector and dealer, Georges-Joseph Demotte, who extracted several miniatures and re-mounted them using leaves from the Farhang-i Jahangiri, much of which was also in his possession. Demotte also used the decorated leaves of the Farhang-i Jahangiri as mounts for other important Mughal miniatures. For an illustration from ‘The British Library/ Chester Beatty’ Akbarnama manuscript similarly mounted on a leaf from the Farhang-i Jahangiri, see lot 140 in the present sale.

Leaves from other royal Mughal manuscripts have been found remounted with borders from the Farhang-i Jahangiri, notably the Chester Beatty Akbarnama (see Leach 1995, vol 1, pp.294-300; Colnaghi 1976, no.86i, ii and iii). Other leaves have sold at auction include Sotheby’s London, 7 December 1971, lots 187a and 188, 4 May 1977, lot 341; Sotheby’s New York, 19 May 1982, lots 66 and 68, and 25 March 1987, lots 183-6; Christie’s London, 21 April 2016, lot 1, 26 October 2017, lots 183, 184, 25 June 2020, lot 82.