BIJAPUR, DECCAN, INDIA, CIRCA 1610

Stylistically, this painting is related to the corpus of paintings produced in Bijapur around the year 1600, such as the Shahnama manuscript in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1985.404.1). This period of effervescence was in part thanks to the enlightened patronage of Ibrahim Adil Shah II (r.1570-1627), who attracted artists from across the Islamic world and beyond to his court atelier. As in that manuscript, the heavy influence which Persian art exercised on painters in the sixteenth century Deccan can be seen in our painting: in the relatively flat modelling, the small eyes of the figure, and even the style of the crown.

The content of the painting, however, is more mysterious. Within the Hindu pantheon, the figure could be the goddess Kumari, who is often shown on the back of a peacock or swan, or Saraswati, who is often depicted riding a goose or a swan. Ibrahim Adil Shah II was particularly devoted to Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge, as is shown by the Kitab-i Nauras, a book of mystical songs supposedly written by the sultan himself. Since Ibrahim’s domain bordered with the powerful Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagara, the movement of artists, holy men, and scholars encouraged the development of a hybrid religiosity in the Deccan.

A testament to this hybrid is the Nujum al-‘Ulum, another book which has been attributed to Ibrahim Adil Shah. It is a treatise on astrology and magic which drew on both Sanskrit and Arabic sources. The oldest surviving copy, in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin (In.2), has a long illustrated section on the earth forces and their spirits. This includes many depictions of the Ruhani, that is goddesses who decide how rulers will fare in battle, and includes two depictions of women riding birds: on folio 271v. is a goddess on a peacock – who can perhaps be understood as a depiction of Kumari – and another, on folio 290r., rides a bird which resembles a parakeet. Not only the content, but also the format of the images – often rectangular panels in the corner of the page – match the current lot. It may tentatively be suggested that this painting, comes from an astrological manuscript similar to the Nujum al-‘Ulum, which also grew out of the cosmopolitan milieu of Bijapur at the turn of the seventeenth century.