DECCAN, CENTRAL INDIA, SECOND HALF 18TH/EARLY 19TH CENTURY; THE QUATRAIN, MESHED, IRAN, DATED AH 1064/1654 AD

This portrait depicts Sultan Muhammad Qutb Shah (r.1611-1625), the sixth ruler of the kingdom of Golconda in the Deccan under the Qutb Shahi dynasty. His face with its arched eyebrows, thin, angular moustache and a cap-like turban can be compared with a seventeenth century portrait of him (Zebrowski, 1983, p.176, fig.142). However, the posture and dress of the figure appear to have been inspired by known portraits of his son, Sultan ‘Abdullah Qutb Shah (r.1626-1672). A closely comparable portrait, now in the Musée National des Artes Asiatiques-Guimet in Paris (MA 5026), is illustrated in Haidar and Sardar, 2015, cat.131, pp.238-239.