INDIA, DECCAN, POSSIBLY AURANGABAD, CIRCA 1650

Several leaves from this series are in museum and private collections. See the Cary Welch catalogue, Sotheby's London 12 December 1972, lot 47 for another leaf from this series. At first attributed to a Mewar or Bikaner school, there has been some scholarly debate as to the origin of this set of paintings. E. Binney notes in The Mughal and Deccani Schools: Indian Miniature Painting from the Collection of Edwin Binney 3rd, 1973, p. 156 cat no. 130, that the Rajasthani style of painting was actually prepared in the Deccan plains for Rajput patrons, who in turn served in or fought against the Mughal armies. D. Ehnbom, Indian Miniatures: The Ehrenfeld Collection, 1985, p. 94, also substantiates this claim for a leaf in the Ehrenfeld collection. S. Markel notes in Pleasure Gardens of the Mind: Indian Paintings from the Jane Greenough Green Collection, 1993, p. 72, that though many of these paintings exhibit Rajasthani and Mewar features, the stylistic anomalies reflect the cosmopolitan nature of court culture in Aurangabad, where Rajput nobles who spent time in military campaigns in the Deccan plateau (sometimes for years) were able to commission works from painters they had recruited from the north.