ALBUM PAGE WITH TWO MINIATURES
ALBUM PAGE WITH TWO MINIATURES

ONE MINIATURE INSCRIBED KESU [DAS], MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1590

Details
ALBUM PAGE WITH TWO MINIATURES
ONE MINIATURE INSCRIBED KESU [DAS], MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1590
One side gouache on paper heightened with gold, illustrating a courtly scene with enthroned figure with attendants being presented with a manuscript within a walled palace complex, minor areas of repainting, the margins with inscriptions identifiying the ruler as Jahangir, verso with pen and ink miniature depicting European scene with crowd of figures in an interior with arched windows before a European background, central smudges obscuring some of the features of the figures, 'Kesu' inscribed along the bottom of the miniature, mounted between gold floral borders on plain cream margins
Gouache miniature 9½ x 5 7/8in. (24.2 x 14.5cm.); pen and ink miniature 3¾ x 5 7/8in. (9.5 x 19.4cm.); folio 12 5/8 x 8½in. (32 x 21.5cm.)
Provenance
Formerly in the collection of Colonel Augustus Cotgrave Honner, bought in Lucknow in 1860

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Lot Essay

Kesu Kalan, to whom the grisaille miniature on this album page is ascribed, was also known as Kesu the Elder. His name often appears Kesu, as here, or Kesu Das. He was one of the more prominent painters of Akbar's atelier. He could paint in the more standard Akbari mould, and in this style made contributions to the Victoria and Albert Museum Akbarnama (circa. 1590). He is however perhaps best known for his (often highly coloured) copies of European engravings. The resulting studies, in particular of the human anatomy represent a departure from the Persianate cannon of aesthetics. Perhaps because of this he was also one of Jahangir's favourite early artists (Linda York Leach, Mughal and other Indian Paintings from the Chester Beatty Library, London, 1995, p. 152).

Examples of Kesu Das' work after the European mode include a signed painting of St Jerome (circa 1580-85) in the Musée Guimet (see Amina Okada, Imperial Mughal Painters, Paris, 1992, pl.100, p.97); an album leaf with a miniature of the Cruxifiction ascribed to him in the British Museum (illustrated in J.M.Rogers, Mughal Miniatures, London, 1993, pl.44, p.68); a signed painting from the story of Joseph in the Chester Beatty Library, and another one ascribed to him in the St. Louis Art Museum (op cit. pls.110,111, the former also in Leach, op.cit., pl.1.233, p.136, and in Milo Cleveland Beach, The Grand Mogul: Imperial Painting in India 1600-1660, Williamstown, 1978, pl.10 recto, p.54). The earlier European engraving prototype for the St. Louis is known.

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