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拍品专文
In the A'in-i-Akbari, Basawan is listed as the greatest of Akbar's painters after Mir Sayyad 'Ali, 'Abd as-Samad and Daswanth. By 1584 and through the later years of Akbar's reign, when the other three listed were no longer active, Basawan became the most influential and prestigious artist of the period. In a way not mirrored by his contemporaries, Basawan studied and learnt from the European prints that circulated throughout the Mughal Empire (Milo Cleveland Beach, The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal Court, Freer Gallery, Washington D.C., 1981, p.89).
Basawan preferred to depict ordinary people rather than the usual courtiers and dignitaries. By doing so, he was freed from the obligation of the flattering image, and he rather indulged his taste for uncompromising or as Okada refers to them, 'spontaneous' portraits (Amina Okada, Imperial Mughal Painters, Paris, 1992, p. 90). His tendency towards realism and his interest in physical form as well as texture and individuality present themselves clearly here, in the informal poses adopted and the treatment of the figures' robes. Indeed Beach comments upon Basawan's skillful treatment of cloth and the way it convincingly enfolds the body (Beach, op. cit., p. 198).
One of his drawings in the Freer Gallery depicts a seated man (circa 1580-5) (published in Beach, op. cit., cat. no. 25, p. 198). It is striking in its similarity to the present example, both the use of brush and the depiction of an eccentric physical type sitting with spread legs and downcast demeanour. Similarly, the portrayal of a character who leans over the side of a boat in a detail from an illustration from the Darab-nama (in the British Library, published in Okada, op. cit., no. 74, p. 77), bears resemblance in pose and stature to the figure who in this painting leans over the chair.
Basawan preferred to depict ordinary people rather than the usual courtiers and dignitaries. By doing so, he was freed from the obligation of the flattering image, and he rather indulged his taste for uncompromising or as Okada refers to them, 'spontaneous' portraits (Amina Okada, Imperial Mughal Painters, Paris, 1992, p. 90). His tendency towards realism and his interest in physical form as well as texture and individuality present themselves clearly here, in the informal poses adopted and the treatment of the figures' robes. Indeed Beach comments upon Basawan's skillful treatment of cloth and the way it convincingly enfolds the body (Beach, op. cit., p. 198).
One of his drawings in the Freer Gallery depicts a seated man (circa 1580-5) (published in Beach, op. cit., cat. no. 25, p. 198). It is striking in its similarity to the present example, both the use of brush and the depiction of an eccentric physical type sitting with spread legs and downcast demeanour. Similarly, the portrayal of a character who leans over the side of a boat in a detail from an illustration from the Darab-nama (in the British Library, published in Okada, op. cit., no. 74, p. 77), bears resemblance in pose and stature to the figure who in this painting leans over the chair.