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拍品专文
This hauntingly beautiful portrait of Tulips and an iris is one of the greatest floral studies in all Indian painting. So captivating was this image considered to be, that it was used as the poster for the 1985 exhibition “India” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Cary Welch commented that “it far transcends botany… The artist has so elevated and humanised these flowers that we approach them as we should Shah Jahan himself…” (Welch 1985, p.245), and B. N. Goswamy observed that “The artists working for Jahangir and Shahjahan, possessed of the same keen eye [as the emperors], sometimes imparted to the flowers that they painted an unearthly air of lyricism, combining the natural and the ideal.” Goswamy 2016, p.336).
Anthony Welch’s eloquent description of the painting is memorable: “This is a picture startling in its simplicity and stirring in its richness. The yellow-tan paper supplies no sky, provides no background, and supports only a meagre, slightly rising line of moss at the bottom of the page Towering over this minute landscape is a colossus, a common tulip far too vital and too large for the ground in which it seems to grow. Its erect stalk undulates slightly, and its single leaf of rich and subtly variegated green curves about the stalk and inclines its tip as if in a slow and measured dance around a center. The blossom is in full and perfect bloom: the shades of pink and streaks of yellow rich and luminous, the petals crisply curving and just open enough to reveal the depth of pink along their inner surfaces. The iris, to the right and farther back, is less splendidly dramatic and varicolored, but it is painted with marvelous subtlety, the cupped petals slightly parted to reveal pollen like the softest powder. To the left and seemingly far in the distance, a Western Asiatic tulip (indigenous to Kashmir but not to the rest of India) appears more modest still, with gently drooping leaves and bent head. This personified analysis is appropriate, for these are highly individual portraits. Other Mughal painters have been keenly observant, but the unnamed master here was more ambitious, bent on capturing the essence of each flower - its tulipness, its irisness. Thus, despite the technical illogic of their setting, they 'live' and dominate their environment, which is far vaster than it seems initially, for through a combination of decreasing size and increasing simplicity the iris and the second tulip recede to a great depth. In its very simplicity this recession is a remarkable artistic achievement, transcending the linear and atmospheric perspectives adopted from European art by Mughal painters more than fifty years before…”. (A. Welch in Welch and Welch 1982, pp.217-19).
Stuart Cary Welch had linked the authorship of this work to an anonymous artist he dubbed the “master of the borders” suggesting stylistic similarities with the flowers in the borders of the various albums made for Shah Jahan (Welch 1985, p.245-7). While there are obvious similarities and a shared generality of source imagery, the quality and artistic intensity of the present work far surpasses the floral elements in the borders of albums. Here the painter has achieved artistic alchemy, breathing life into the tulip, giving it an aesthetic soul and taking it beyond naturalism to the realm of Platonic forms. Commenting on this work, Josephy M. Dye III stated: “the highly poised painting is the work of an artist who is not satisfied with the physical reality of God’s handiwork; rather, he seeks through carefully calculated exaggerations to transport the subject to a different realm. These unblemished, gem-coloured flowers grow in Paradise, not on earth.” (Dye in Pal 1989, p.104)
Goswamy noted that tulips feature frequently in Persian and Urdu poetry, with special poetic names given to different varieties, “the Tulip of Desert, the Tulip with burnt Heart, the Tulip with a Head Bent in Sorrows. … These are descriptions that serve the poet’s purpose well, for he likens the tulip to the beauty of the face of the beloved. Lala-rukh – ‘with a face like a tulip’ – is how the beauteous one is often described.” (Goswamy and Fischer 1987, p.74).
The Mughal emperors had long been enchanted by flowers, especially tulips. The first Mughal emperor Babur wrote about them in his memoirs: “Tulips of many colours cover these foot-hills; I once counted them up; it came out at 32 or 33 different sorts. We named one the Rose-scented, because its perfume was a little like that of the red rose; it grows by itself on Shaikh’s-plain, here and nowhere else. The Hundred-leaved tulip is another…” (Baburnama, p.215). By the early 17th century this interest had grown and Jahangir wrote movingly of the flower-filled valleys he saw in Kashmir:
“In the soul-enchanting spring the hills and plains are filled with blossoms; the gates, the walls, the courts, the roofs, are lighted up by the torches of banquet-adorning tulips. What shall we say of these things or of the wide meadows and the fragrant trefoil?
The flower-nymphs were brilliant
Their cheeks shone like lamps
There were fragrant buds on their stems
Like dark amulets on the arms of the beloved”
(Tuzuk-i Jahangiri, pp.134-5, 144, transl. A, Rogers)
Jahangir ordered his artist Mansur to paint some of the blooms: “The flowers that are seen in the territories of Kashmir are beyond all calculation. Those that Nadiru-l-‘asri Ustad Mansur has painted are more than 100.” (ibid. p.145)
Some years later, when describing the city of Srinagar in Kashmir, Shah Jahan wrote: “They construct their houses three or four stories high, one above the other, and surmount them with trussed roofs covered with wooden shingles; and over this they spread grass and then lay a coating of earth over all. In this they plant bulbs of the lala chughasu, one of the finest species of tulip, which thrives abundantly in Kashmir and bears a gorgeous flower.” (Shah Jahan Nama, p.125).
This strong interest in flowers and floral imagery coincided with the arrival in India of European engravings, printed herbals and florilegia, which the painters of the royal Mughal atelier readily absorbed into their artistic vocabulary, producing their own brilliant versions. The European source image for the present work has not so far been firmly identified, but a very similar tulip is found in the Theatrum Florae of Daniel Rabel (1578-1637), first published in Paris in 1622 and again 1627 and 1633. Very similar tulips to the central flower here are pictured on plates 4, 6 and 9 of Theatrum Florae, and one of the tulips on plate 4 also has a very similar leaf curling round the stem. Plate 11 in the same work has two tulips that closely resemble the smaller tulip at lower left in the present work, and plate 46 has similar irises to the iris on the right in the present work. Canby pointed out that the unknown source engraving for the central tulip here must also have been exported to Turkey, as a contemporary Ottoman drawing is in the British Museum (1995,0228,0.1). Its presence in both India and Turkey neatly maps the expanding trade networks of the Europeans in the 17th century. For studies on the source imagery of such flower paintings, see Skelton 1972. For other Mughal flower studies of the Jahangir and Shah Jahan periods see Das 2012, pp.138-49; Verma 1999; Falk and Archer 1981, nos.68, ff.23, 24, 41, 42, 49-54, 61-68, pp.391-9).
THE ROYAL LIBRARY NOTES
The seal impressions and inscriptions of royal librarians on the verso indicate that the painting entered the imperial Mughal library towards the end of Shah Jahan’s reign (1628-1658) and remained there well into Aurangzeb’s reign (1658-1707). The dates mentioned and the royal librarians named in the inscriptions are as follows (in chronological order):
28 Rabi I of regnal year 25 of Shah Jahan’s reign (9 March 1652), transferred from Mahafiz Khan to Muhammad Ahfaz Khan, librarians of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb
18 Jumada I of regnal year 28 of Shah Jahan’s reign (26 March 1655): inspected by Abdallah Chalabi, a librarian of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb
4 Rajab of regnal year 29, probably of Shah Jahan’s reign (10 May 1655): inspected (no name)
13 Jumada II of regnal year 4, probably of Aurangzeb’s reign (19 April 1662): transferred on the orders of “His Radiant Highness” to Mahafiz Khan, a librarian of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb
28 Jumada I of regnal year 21 of Aurangzeb’s reign (18 July 1678): transferred to the care of Muhammad Mansur, a librarian of Aurangzeb
The librarians’ seal impressions are as follows:
I‘timad Khan, “servant of Shah Jahan”, dated AH 1063 / 1652-3 AD
Inayat Khan, “servant of Shah Jahan”, dated AH 1968 / 1657-8 AD
Abdallah, house-born of Alamgir, undated
Sayyid Ali Husayn, a librarian of Aurangzeb, undated
Kifayatullah Khan, undated
In addition, there are two seals probably of private owners rather than royal librarians, one of which has a faint date of AH 1153 / 1740-41 AD, indicating that the painting had left the royal library by that date. Interestingly this coincides very closely with the dispersal of the Mughal royal library after the sack of Delhi by the Persian warlord Nadir Shah in 1739. For a detailed study of Mughal librarians and inspection notes Seyller 1997.
PROVENANCE
The present page was previously part of important group of paintings collected in the late 18th century by the brothers William Dent (1761-1833) and John Dent, which remained in the Dent family for two centuries until sold at auction in 1972. For further information on the Dent collection see lot 23 in this sale.
Anthony Welch’s eloquent description of the painting is memorable: “This is a picture startling in its simplicity and stirring in its richness. The yellow-tan paper supplies no sky, provides no background, and supports only a meagre, slightly rising line of moss at the bottom of the page Towering over this minute landscape is a colossus, a common tulip far too vital and too large for the ground in which it seems to grow. Its erect stalk undulates slightly, and its single leaf of rich and subtly variegated green curves about the stalk and inclines its tip as if in a slow and measured dance around a center. The blossom is in full and perfect bloom: the shades of pink and streaks of yellow rich and luminous, the petals crisply curving and just open enough to reveal the depth of pink along their inner surfaces. The iris, to the right and farther back, is less splendidly dramatic and varicolored, but it is painted with marvelous subtlety, the cupped petals slightly parted to reveal pollen like the softest powder. To the left and seemingly far in the distance, a Western Asiatic tulip (indigenous to Kashmir but not to the rest of India) appears more modest still, with gently drooping leaves and bent head. This personified analysis is appropriate, for these are highly individual portraits. Other Mughal painters have been keenly observant, but the unnamed master here was more ambitious, bent on capturing the essence of each flower - its tulipness, its irisness. Thus, despite the technical illogic of their setting, they 'live' and dominate their environment, which is far vaster than it seems initially, for through a combination of decreasing size and increasing simplicity the iris and the second tulip recede to a great depth. In its very simplicity this recession is a remarkable artistic achievement, transcending the linear and atmospheric perspectives adopted from European art by Mughal painters more than fifty years before…”. (A. Welch in Welch and Welch 1982, pp.217-19).
Stuart Cary Welch had linked the authorship of this work to an anonymous artist he dubbed the “master of the borders” suggesting stylistic similarities with the flowers in the borders of the various albums made for Shah Jahan (Welch 1985, p.245-7). While there are obvious similarities and a shared generality of source imagery, the quality and artistic intensity of the present work far surpasses the floral elements in the borders of albums. Here the painter has achieved artistic alchemy, breathing life into the tulip, giving it an aesthetic soul and taking it beyond naturalism to the realm of Platonic forms. Commenting on this work, Josephy M. Dye III stated: “the highly poised painting is the work of an artist who is not satisfied with the physical reality of God’s handiwork; rather, he seeks through carefully calculated exaggerations to transport the subject to a different realm. These unblemished, gem-coloured flowers grow in Paradise, not on earth.” (Dye in Pal 1989, p.104)
Goswamy noted that tulips feature frequently in Persian and Urdu poetry, with special poetic names given to different varieties, “the Tulip of Desert, the Tulip with burnt Heart, the Tulip with a Head Bent in Sorrows. … These are descriptions that serve the poet’s purpose well, for he likens the tulip to the beauty of the face of the beloved. Lala-rukh – ‘with a face like a tulip’ – is how the beauteous one is often described.” (Goswamy and Fischer 1987, p.74).
The Mughal emperors had long been enchanted by flowers, especially tulips. The first Mughal emperor Babur wrote about them in his memoirs: “Tulips of many colours cover these foot-hills; I once counted them up; it came out at 32 or 33 different sorts. We named one the Rose-scented, because its perfume was a little like that of the red rose; it grows by itself on Shaikh’s-plain, here and nowhere else. The Hundred-leaved tulip is another…” (Baburnama, p.215). By the early 17th century this interest had grown and Jahangir wrote movingly of the flower-filled valleys he saw in Kashmir:
“In the soul-enchanting spring the hills and plains are filled with blossoms; the gates, the walls, the courts, the roofs, are lighted up by the torches of banquet-adorning tulips. What shall we say of these things or of the wide meadows and the fragrant trefoil?
The flower-nymphs were brilliant
Their cheeks shone like lamps
There were fragrant buds on their stems
Like dark amulets on the arms of the beloved”
(Tuzuk-i Jahangiri, pp.134-5, 144, transl. A, Rogers)
Jahangir ordered his artist Mansur to paint some of the blooms: “The flowers that are seen in the territories of Kashmir are beyond all calculation. Those that Nadiru-l-‘asri Ustad Mansur has painted are more than 100.” (ibid. p.145)
Some years later, when describing the city of Srinagar in Kashmir, Shah Jahan wrote: “They construct their houses three or four stories high, one above the other, and surmount them with trussed roofs covered with wooden shingles; and over this they spread grass and then lay a coating of earth over all. In this they plant bulbs of the lala chughasu, one of the finest species of tulip, which thrives abundantly in Kashmir and bears a gorgeous flower.” (Shah Jahan Nama, p.125).
This strong interest in flowers and floral imagery coincided with the arrival in India of European engravings, printed herbals and florilegia, which the painters of the royal Mughal atelier readily absorbed into their artistic vocabulary, producing their own brilliant versions. The European source image for the present work has not so far been firmly identified, but a very similar tulip is found in the Theatrum Florae of Daniel Rabel (1578-1637), first published in Paris in 1622 and again 1627 and 1633. Very similar tulips to the central flower here are pictured on plates 4, 6 and 9 of Theatrum Florae, and one of the tulips on plate 4 also has a very similar leaf curling round the stem. Plate 11 in the same work has two tulips that closely resemble the smaller tulip at lower left in the present work, and plate 46 has similar irises to the iris on the right in the present work. Canby pointed out that the unknown source engraving for the central tulip here must also have been exported to Turkey, as a contemporary Ottoman drawing is in the British Museum (1995,0228,0.1). Its presence in both India and Turkey neatly maps the expanding trade networks of the Europeans in the 17th century. For studies on the source imagery of such flower paintings, see Skelton 1972. For other Mughal flower studies of the Jahangir and Shah Jahan periods see Das 2012, pp.138-49; Verma 1999; Falk and Archer 1981, nos.68, ff.23, 24, 41, 42, 49-54, 61-68, pp.391-9).
THE ROYAL LIBRARY NOTES
The seal impressions and inscriptions of royal librarians on the verso indicate that the painting entered the imperial Mughal library towards the end of Shah Jahan’s reign (1628-1658) and remained there well into Aurangzeb’s reign (1658-1707). The dates mentioned and the royal librarians named in the inscriptions are as follows (in chronological order):
28 Rabi I of regnal year 25 of Shah Jahan’s reign (9 March 1652), transferred from Mahafiz Khan to Muhammad Ahfaz Khan, librarians of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb
18 Jumada I of regnal year 28 of Shah Jahan’s reign (26 March 1655): inspected by Abdallah Chalabi, a librarian of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb
4 Rajab of regnal year 29, probably of Shah Jahan’s reign (10 May 1655): inspected (no name)
13 Jumada II of regnal year 4, probably of Aurangzeb’s reign (19 April 1662): transferred on the orders of “His Radiant Highness” to Mahafiz Khan, a librarian of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb
28 Jumada I of regnal year 21 of Aurangzeb’s reign (18 July 1678): transferred to the care of Muhammad Mansur, a librarian of Aurangzeb
The librarians’ seal impressions are as follows:
I‘timad Khan, “servant of Shah Jahan”, dated AH 1063 / 1652-3 AD
Inayat Khan, “servant of Shah Jahan”, dated AH 1968 / 1657-8 AD
Abdallah, house-born of Alamgir, undated
Sayyid Ali Husayn, a librarian of Aurangzeb, undated
Kifayatullah Khan, undated
In addition, there are two seals probably of private owners rather than royal librarians, one of which has a faint date of AH 1153 / 1740-41 AD, indicating that the painting had left the royal library by that date. Interestingly this coincides very closely with the dispersal of the Mughal royal library after the sack of Delhi by the Persian warlord Nadir Shah in 1739. For a detailed study of Mughal librarians and inspection notes Seyller 1997.
PROVENANCE
The present page was previously part of important group of paintings collected in the late 18th century by the brothers William Dent (1761-1833) and John Dent, which remained in the Dent family for two centuries until sold at auction in 1972. For further information on the Dent collection see lot 23 in this sale.