ATTRIBUTABLE TO KESHAV DAS, MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1590-1610

Keshav Das, also known as Kesu Das and Kesu Kalan, was one of the most prominent Mughal painters during the late 16^th and early 17^th century. Keshav Das is named as fifth of seventeen artists in the royal atelier as having “attained fame” by Abu’l Fazl in the ‘Ain-i Akbari. He had a long career beginning around 1570 and continuing until circa 1604. For most of this time he worked for the Emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) and contributed to several major Akbari manuscripts including the Jaipur Razmnama, the British Library Baburnama, the Bankimore Timurnama and the Victoria & Albert Museum Akbarnama. It is thought Keshav Das joined the rebellious Prince Selim – the later Jahangir – at the court he constructed at Allahabad between 1599 and 1604 where he contributed paintings to the Yog Vashisht and Ram Kunwar both now in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (MS.5 and MS.37).

Although known for his many works illustrating manuscripts in the standard Akbari mould, Keshav Das is perhaps best known for his engagement with European engravings. His numerous studies drawing on European materials, in particular his fascination with human anatomy, were a departure from the existing Persianate aesthetic canon and it is perhaps this innovative interpretation of European portraiture that made Keshav Das one of Jahangir’s favourite early artists. Some of Keshav Das’ paintings after the European mode include a signed painting of St Jerome in the Musée Guimet (see Amina Okada, Imperial Mughal Painters, Paris, 1992, pl.100, p.97); an album leaf with a miniature of the Cruxifiction ascribed to him in the British Museum (J.M.Rogers, Mughal Miniatures, London, 1993, pl.44, p.68); a signed painting from the story of Joseph in the Chester Beatty Library, and another one ascribed to him in the St. Louis Art Museum (ibid pls.110,111, in Milo Cleveland Beach, The Grand Mogul: Imperial Painting in India 1600-1660, Williamstown, 1978, pl.10 recto, p.54).

European engravings began to appear to the Mughal court with the arrival of Portuguese missionaries, who Akbar first encountered during his 1573 siege of Surat (Abu’l Fazl, Akbarnama, tr. Beveridge, London, 1989 (reprint), vol.III, p. 37) .The prints and illustrated Bibles which would have been brought by the Christian missionaries to the Mughal court provided rich inspiration to artists like Keshav Das. Whilst this painting clearly betrays the European influences on subject and overall artistic mode, the work is not just a slavish copy to the source material with added details of a distinctly Mughal flavour. Perhaps most notable is the large baluster cushion positioned behind Mary. The compositional structure and the depiction of the Virgin Mary’s face in the present lot are comparable to a painting of the young Tobias, attributable to Keshav Das, which was sold as part of the Sven Gahlin Collection, Sotheby’s London, 6 October 2015, lot 3.