MUGHAL INDIA, 1760

細節

A MAIDEN BEING LED TO HER BED CHAMBER AT NIGHT
MUGHAL INDIA, 1760
Gouache heightened with gold on paper, an inebriated maiden is led by female attendants and musicians to a bed-chamber at night, laid down between cream margin with gold illumination and polychrome rules on gold speckled white paper, with inscription cartouche in the margin, the reverse with nasta'liq calligraphy arranged in cloud-bands on gold ground with red leafy illumination, signed Muhammad Amin Mashhadi, mounted, framed and glazed
9 3/8 x 7¼in. (24 x 18.5cm.)

來源

Sotheby's London, 14 December 1987, lot 29

注意事項

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

拍場告示

Please note that this miniature is from the Husn Album collected by Sir Elijah Impey. Further details are available on request.

拍品專文

The inscriptions read:

recto: 'Portrait of Husn-e 'Alam at night'
verso: A calligraphic page of a Persian quatrain of a eulogy to a king, in nasta'liq, signed as 'The smallest of sincere servants (of God) Muhammad Amin Mashhadi, may his sins be forgiven and his faults covered'.

Muhammad Amin, a Mashhadi scribe, who moved to India, was alive at the time Mir'at al-'Alam was composed (1078/1667-8) and copied the Padshahnama, which he presented to 'Alamgir (Mehdi Bayani, ahval va asar-e khosh-nevisan, vol. III, Teheran, 1348 sh., pp. 650-51).

For an earlier version of this miniature see Toby Falk, Paintings from Mughal India, P & D Colnaghi Exhibition Catalogue, London, 1979, no. 31, p. 67. Falk notes that the scene of a lady escorted to bed was a popular subject for later Mughal artists, although in most cases the bed is already occupied by a waiting prince (Falk, op. cit., p. 67).