DELHI SCHOOL, CIRCA 1800

The tradition of composite animals stretches far back to early Buddhist manuscripts of Central Asia, which later made their way into Persian painting and subsequently into the artistic corpus of Northern and Central India. This present example of a composite elephant is similar to a miniature which sold in Christie's New York, 20 March 2002, lot 144. Both miniatures share the same figure of the winged rider or peri as well as a demon preceding the elephant with a curved trumpet. Our miniature is far more detailed than the New York example with a far greater number of human figures intertwined into the composite body of the elephant. For a further discussion on composite animals in Mughal and Deccani painting see Michael Barry, 'Diabolic Fancies and Composite Animals: Persian Poetry and the Grotesques of Deccani and Mughal Painting', in N. Haidar and M. Sardar Ed. Sultans of the South: Arts of India's Deccan Courts, 1323-1687, New York, 2011, pp. 102-109.