PROVINCIAL MUGHAL, NORTH INDIA, CIRCA 1740

A very similar painting with the same subject is in the San Diego Museum of Art (1990.374; illustrated in Barbara Schmidz (ed.), After the Great Mughals: Painting in Dehli and the Regional Courts in the 18th and 19th centuries, Marg, Mumbai, 2002, no. 6, p.19). Our painting is probably of the same period which coincides with the reign of Muhammad Shah (r.1719-48), when depicting harem scenes such as this was especially popular. This scene is likely to depict either the festival of Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, or the Muslim festival of Shab-bara’at, which is held on the eve of the fourteenth day of the month of Sha'ban. A similar painting described as representing Shab-bara’at, and also Mughal, circa 1740, is in the British Library (Toby Falk and Mildred Archer, Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, London, 1981, no.171, p.110).