PROVINCIAL MUGHAL, NORTH, INDIA, MID 18TH CENTURY

This scene is likely to depict either Diwali, the Hindu festival of light, or the Muslim festival of Shab-bara’at which is held on the fourteenth day of the month of Shaban. Both festivals are celebrated with prayers, feasting and illumination. Glamourous depictions of the imperial harem were extremely popular during the Muhammad Shah period; our painting is probably of the same period. A Mughal painting representing Shab-bara’at, circa 1740, part of the Johnson Album (20, no.2) is in the British Library (T. Falk and M. Archer, Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, London, 1981, no. 171, p.110). Another painting with the same subject is in the San Diego Museum of Art (1990.374; illustrated in W. Dalrymple, Y. Sharma (ed.), Princes and Painters in Mughal India, 1707-1857, London, 2012, no. 15, pg. 87.)

For a similar scene which sold recently at auction, see Christie’s London, Arts of India, 25 May 2017, lots 102.