Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs and Carpets
Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs and Carpets
A portrait of the Emperor Shah Jahan (r.1628-58), India, Mughal, mid-17th century
Auction Closed
March 31, 12:40 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
gouache heightened with gold on paper, within narrow pastel borders with gilt scrolling motifs, laid down on an album page, the wide margins decorated with an elegant scrolling floral vine in polychrome and gold on buff ground
painting: 14 by 7.4cm.
leaf: 33.5 by 21.1cm.
Pan Asian Collection; sold Christie’s London, 13 June 1983, lot 131.
Ludwig Habighorst Collection, Germany.
Ludwig Habighorst Collection, Germany.
C.P. Haase, J. Kroger, and U. Lienert, Oriental Splendour, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, 1993, no.188.
L. Habighorst, Blumen – Baume – Gottergarten in indischen miniaturen, Koblenz, 2011, fig.115.
L. Habighorst, Blumen – Baume – Gottergarten in indischen miniaturen, Koblenz, 2011, fig.115.
Akbar’s Golden Legacy, Museum Rietberg, Zurich, 6 October 2015 – 14 February 2016.
This finely executed portrait depicts the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as an older man, wearing a fur-collared gold brocade coat over a striped jama, carrying a sword over his right shoulder and a flywhisk in his left hand. The figure is very similar to a folio from the Nasir al-Din Shah Album, dated circa 1650, where the Emperor is depicted with a partially grey beard, wearing a fur-collared jacket, offering a ruby or a spinel to his eldest son, Dara Shikoh (E. Wright, Muraqqa’ – Imperial Mughal Albums from the Chester Beatty Library, Virginia, 2008, cat.no.77, pp.424-5). The blossoms on the scrolling vine, the thick gold outlines of the floral and foliate motifs, the palette of colours employed in the marginal decoration of our album page are all closely comparable to the decoration on the margins of cat. no.77, as well as the following illustration, cat.no.78.
There are other comparable depictions of the elderly Shah Jahan carrying a sword over his shoulder. Amongst them is a portrait in the Late Shah Jahan Album, dated circa 1640-60, now in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington D.C. (acc.no. S1986.405); another is a mid-seventeenth century portrait in the British Museum in London (acc. no.1920,0917,0.13.16). A further portrait is in the St. Petersburg Album, dated circa 1645, signed by Muhammad Baqir (folio 29 recto; Francesca von Habsburg et al, The St. Petersburg Muraqqa’, Lugano, 1996, plate 64). For a portrait in medallion form, dated to circa 1655, which depicts Shah Jahan in old age holding a little fly-whisk in his left hand, see B.N. Goswamy and E. Fischer, Wonders of a Golden Age, Zurich, 1987, cat.no.45, pp.99-100.
There are other comparable depictions of the elderly Shah Jahan carrying a sword over his shoulder. Amongst them is a portrait in the Late Shah Jahan Album, dated circa 1640-60, now in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington D.C. (acc.no. S1986.405); another is a mid-seventeenth century portrait in the British Museum in London (acc. no.1920,0917,0.13.16). A further portrait is in the St. Petersburg Album, dated circa 1645, signed by Muhammad Baqir (folio 29 recto; Francesca von Habsburg et al, The St. Petersburg Muraqqa’, Lugano, 1996, plate 64). For a portrait in medallion form, dated to circa 1655, which depicts Shah Jahan in old age holding a little fly-whisk in his left hand, see B.N. Goswamy and E. Fischer, Wonders of a Golden Age, Zurich, 1987, cat.no.45, pp.99-100.