A Dancing Couple

INDIA, MUGHAL, PROBABLY BIJAPUR, CIRCA 1660

Details

A Dancing Couple
India, Mughal, probably Bijapur, circa 1660
The young couple expressively painted against a pale green background; laid down on an 18th Century Mughal buff album mount with gold trellis, the mount re-used from a former painting bearing Persian nastaliq inscription Jahangir; the reverse with Persian calligraphic panel of 14 lines of prose enumerating Muslim saints to be read during Ramadan, set within cloud rules on a gold ground with scrolling decoration and buff outer border with gold flowers
Image: 6½ x 4 in. (16.4 x 10.1 cm.); Folio: 15½ x 11 in. (39.3 x 27.9 cm.)

Provenance

Hagop Kevorkian Collection
Sotheby's London, 12 April 1976, lot 141.

Lot Essay

Painted during the reign of Aurangzeb, the image contains strong elements of a neo-Deccani style, developed by the Mughal artists in Bijapur in the 1620s and 1630s. See M. Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, London 1983, p. 87-88 for a similar style of portraiture.

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