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Lot Essay
The album from which this page comes from is particularly interesting for its use of embossed, block-printed and hand-coloured margins made of possibly Chinese paper. It is decorated with exotic scenes that combine Christian saints, palm trees, Chinese pagodas, tiled roofed houses, and figures in long robes and pointed Chinese hats.
The album was possibly assembled in eighteenth-century Hyderabad and seems to have contained portraits of both local and Mughal notables. The added date of AH 1131/1718-9 AD on the calligraphic panel could well be the year when the album was assembled. This is also the date which appears on a calligraphic panel by Haydar Beg known as Rawshanqalam on a page in the Virginia Museum. Other pages which belonged to the same album are in the Los Angeles Museum of Art, in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, in the San Diego Museum of art, in the National Gallery of Canada and in the Virginia Museum (Pratapaditya Pal, Indian Painting, Los Angeles, 1993, cat.99 and 110, p.326-7 and 348-9, Som Prakash Verma, ed., Flora and Fauna in Mughal Art, Mumbay, 1999, fig.8, p.76, and Joseph M. Dye III, The Arts of India, 2001, cat.158, p.363-5).
Two calligraphic panels in the British Museum are signed Mir 'Ali Khan Javahir Raqam-i Thani, probably the same scribe who copied the present calligraphic panel (1974,0617,0.21.16 and 1974,0617,0.21.48)
The album was possibly assembled in eighteenth-century Hyderabad and seems to have contained portraits of both local and Mughal notables. The added date of AH 1131/1718-9 AD on the calligraphic panel could well be the year when the album was assembled. This is also the date which appears on a calligraphic panel by Haydar Beg known as Rawshanqalam on a page in the Virginia Museum. Other pages which belonged to the same album are in the Los Angeles Museum of Art, in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, in the San Diego Museum of art, in the National Gallery of Canada and in the Virginia Museum (Pratapaditya Pal, Indian Painting, Los Angeles, 1993, cat.99 and 110, p.326-7 and 348-9, Som Prakash Verma, ed., Flora and Fauna in Mughal Art, Mumbay, 1999, fig.8, p.76, and Joseph M. Dye III, The Arts of India, 2001, cat.158, p.363-5).
Two calligraphic panels in the British Museum are signed Mir 'Ali Khan Javahir Raqam-i Thani, probably the same scribe who copied the present calligraphic panel (1974,0617,0.21.16 and 1974,0617,0.21.48)