Tobias and the angel(?)

Details

Tobias and the angel(?)
gouache heightened with gold on paper, in a verdant landscape with a stream in front, the winged creature with feather-covered body and wearing a leaf skirt sits on a raised round stone while the similarly covered boy offers it a fish, a quatrain in black nastaliq above and below, gold and orange margins between black rules, buff and blue borders painted with gold flowering vine, on green leaf similarly painted, inscribed above 'picture of a perizad and a boy with a fish in his hand', Mughal, circa 1600 (slight flaking and rubbing, small areas of possible overpainting) - 5¾ x 4in. (14.6 x 10.1cm.)
See illustration

Lot Essay

This appears to be a variation on the well-known and European-influenced subject of Tobias and the Angel. Two paintings of slightly earlier date (Okada, A.: Imperial Mughal Painters, Paris 1992, figs 25 and 109) show a similar angel and fish (without Tobias) but in both cases the angel is conventionally clothed rather than feather-covered. It is possible that the iconography in ours may have become distorted or adapted to a different subject. For further examples see: Okada, A.: Miniature de L'Inde Imperiale, Paris 1989

More from Oriental Ceramics and Works of Art

View All