A LOVING COUPLE

IRAN, SECOND HALF 17TH CENTURY

Details

A LOVING COUPLE
IRAN, SECOND HALF 17TH CENTURY
A leaf from a Mughal album, gouache heightened with gold on paper, a loving couple locked in passionate embrace recline against a blue cushion embroidered with gold flora and fauna, the lady in yellow floral embroidered robes with her hands raised up above her head, the man in light blue robes with his arms tightly wound around her, gold vegetation and clouds surround them, to the left of the figures a later attribution to Reza 'Abbasi, verso with a nasta'liq quatrain outlined in gold clouds on blue ground, laid down between blue or cream and gold minor border on wide buff margins
Miniature 4 5/8 x 7 3/8in. (11.5 x 18.6cm.); folio 15 3/8 x 9¾in. (39.2 x 24.8cm.)

Provenance

Sir A.W. Robert Dent, C.B., sold Sotheby's, London, 11 April 1972, lot 15
Anon sale in these Rooms, 15 October 2002, lot 171

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Lot Essay

According to a note in the Sotheby's catalogue entry in 1972, the collection from which this miniature came was probably formed by either John or William Dent, servants of the East India Company at the end of the 18th century.

Many of the miniatures in the collection bore inscriptions of ownership of Shuja'al-Dawla of Oudh (1731-1775), and this miniature may also have been in his library.

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