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PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE GREEK COLLECTORThe following lot comes from a Private Greek Collector. The present owner inherited it in 1965 from his uncle, Mr. Kleon Kittas. Kittas spent much of the early part of the 20th century in India. He was reported to have been an advisor on western art to several royal collectors there and to have received the manuscripts from a royal patron as a token of thanks for his crucial services.

A CARAVEL ATTACKED BY A SEA MONSTER

AFTER MISKIN, MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1590

Details

A CARAVEL ATTACKED BY A SEA MONSTER
AFTER MISKIN, MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1590
Opaque pigments heightened with gold and silver on paper, a European sailboat with a mixed European and Indian crew, a learned figure examines an astrological globe at the bow, a European figure loads a musket in a small dinghy as he heads to confront a sea monster in the lower left hand corner, the waves highlighted in a now-oxidised silver, a European-inspired landscape with trees behind, laid down between verses of nasta'liq on elegant gold-illuminated Safavid margins with dense foliage inhabited by birds, backed onto marbled paper, traces of a seal impression.
Painting 8¾ x 6 1/8in. (22.3 x 15.6cm.); folio 13 x 7 3/8in. (32.8 x 18.7cm.)

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Lot Essay

This lively scene, dominated by a large European sail boat (caravel) carrying wares for trade, takes its inspiration from two paintings by the artist Miskin. The first comparable work is an illustration to the Anwar-i Suhaili which is signed by Miskin and dated 1596, now in the Bharat Kala Bhavan in Varanasi. That shows a larger and a smaller vessel like the ones illustrated in our painting set against a background with European architecture and birds flying above (Milo Cleveland Beach, The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal Court, Washington D.C., 1981, pp.122-23, fig.14). The second closely related painting which Beach attributes to Miskin and dates to circa 1590 is probably a depiction of Noah’s Ark this time with a single large vessel set in the open sea. The depiction of Noah’s Ark like our work includes a learned man consulting a form of an astrological globe in an almost identical posture (Milo Cleveland Beach, op.cit., Washington D.C., 1981, p.60, cat. 13).

For another painting from the same album, see the preceding lot.

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