An album page: recto with a jharokha portrait of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir and a courtesan, possibly by a Mughal artist working in Rajasthan, India, first quarter 18th century; verso with a young lady in a landscape, Mughal or provincial Mughal, second half 18th century

Acquired in London, first half 1980s

Dr. Mark Zebrowski (1944-99), London

Private Collection, London

This image of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir depicts him as an older man caressing the face of a courtesan. The couple are seated at a jharokha window with a bolster behind them, a rolled-up and tied floral textile above, and two textiles or carpets with a similar pattern laid over the parapet before them. The jharokha or window portrait is a small rectangular or square portrait with the bust of the sitter visible above a parapet. The subject is shown as though appearing at a window or a balcony. These jharokha portraits were quite common during the reign of Jahangir (r.1605-27) and posthumous versions depicting the emperor continued to be produced later in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Jharokha portraits were often used in the composition of royal Mughal album pages, where they were mounted with other thematically related portraits, or laid down above a larger palace scene (Crill and Jariwala 2010, p.74). The other context in which such portraits appear is within larger scenes of state occasions or performances, where the emperor sits either at a palace window watching an event, or on a raised throne platform within a palace, receiving princes and courtiers. A painting of Jahangir appearing at the jharokha in the Agra Fort, from the Jahangirnama, by Abu’l Hasan dated to circa 1622, is in the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto (AKM00136; J.P. Losty, ‘The Carpet at the Window: A European Morif in the Mughal Jharokha Portrait’ in Indian Painting: Themes, History and Interpretations; Essays in Honour of B.N. Goswamy, M. Sharma and P. Kaimal (ed.), Ahmedabad, 2013, fig.1). For a further jharokha portrait of Jahangir holding a bust of his father, Akbar, by Hashim dated to circa 1611-15, in the Musée Guimet, Paris (3676, B), see ibid., fig.13. Examples of the jharokha format also appear frequently in the Windsor Padshahnama. For two posthumous depictions of Jahangir seated at a palace balcony receiving Prince Khurram, see Beach, Koch and Thackston 1997, nos.37, 38, pp.93-95., nos.37, 43.

A comparable jharokha portrait of Jahangir as an older man, signed by the artist Daulat and dated to 1627, the final year of the Emperor’s life and reign, formerly in the Sven Gahlin Collection, sold in these rooms, on 6 October 2015, lot 26.

It is possible that the present jharokha portrait was painted by a Mughal artist or a follower working at a Rajput atelier, either in Bikaner, Jodhpur or Kishangarh. Paintings in the Mughal style, including portraits of Mughal Emperors and noblemen, continued to be produced in Rajasthan after leading artists such as Bhavanidas and Dalchand moved from Delhi to the Jodhpur and Kishangarh courts in the first quarter of the eighteenth century.

The reverse of the album page has a slightly damaged painting of a young lady in a transparent veil, with strings of pearls, carrying a lota in her left hand, possibly on her way to bathe. The figure is identical to another painting of a young woman, attributed to the Lucknow artist Uttam Chand and dated to circa 1775, now in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (11A.66; L.Y. Leach, Mughal and other Indian Paintings from the Chester Beatty Library, vol.II, London, 1995, no.6.341, p.698). The figure of the young lady in our painting is also closely comparable to a lady visiting a Shaivite shrine holding prayer beads instead of a lota in her left hand, inscribed to the artist Muhammad Faqirullah Khan and dated to circa 1750. The painting is part of the Richard Johnson Collection in the British Library (J.17.3; see W. Dalrymple and Y. Sharma (ed.), Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857, New York, 2012, no.20, pp.92-3).