A procession of the Taziyas during Muharram from the Louisa Parlby Album, India, Murshidabad, Company School, circa 1795-1810

This vibrant processional scene along the river in Murshidabad depicts brightly painted structures called ta’ziyas being carried by Shi’a Muslims to be subsequently immersed in the river. This ritual procession takes place on the day of Ashura, the tenth day of Muhurram, to commemorate the martyrdam of the Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the Battle of Karbala. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Murshidabad artists would often include depictions of Indian life and local festivals in album sets being assembled for British patrons. There is a very similar illustration of a ta’ziya procession by a Murshidabad artist dated to circa 1790 in the British Library (Hyde Collection Add.Or.3233; M. Archer, Indian and British Portraiture 1770-1825, London, 1979, fig.80). A slightly later Company School illustration of a ta’ziya procession painted on mica, dated to circa 1820-40, and formerly in the Paul F. Walter Collection, sold at Christie’s New York, 21-28 September 2017, lot 661.

This illustration is from an album assembled in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century in Bengal (probably at Maidapur near Murshidabad) by Louisa, the wife of Colonel James Parlby, who was an engineer in the service of the East India Company. Reflecting the British collecting tastes of the time, the album included studies of local flora and fauna, architectural and topographical views, Hindu and Muslim festivals, a series of Palladian mansions as well as the Nawab’s Palace in Murshidabad. For other paintings from the same album, see lots 49 and 50.