MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1635-40

Details

AN ILLUMINATED FOLIO FROM A MUGHAL ALBUM
MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1635-40
Arabic manuscript on paper, 6ll. black nasta'liq reserved against gold illuminated cloudbands, four additional nasta'liq couplets set vertically at the edges of the text panel, set within blue and buff illuminated borders and gold and polychrome rules, a finely illuminated gold and polychrome headpiece above, margins with gold floral illumination, the reverse plain, mounted, framed and glazed
Text panel 6 ¼ x 3 ¾in. (15.8 x 9.4cm.); folio 15 3⁄8 x 10in. (39.1 x 25.3cm.)

Provenance

American art market, 1997

Engraved

The beginning of the Arabic Munajat (Intimate Conversations) attributed to Imam ‘Ali, with a Persian translation in the margins
Identified at the top as, munajat amir al-mu’minin ‘ali ibn abi talib karrama allah wajhahu , 'The Intimate Conversations of the Commander of the Faithful ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, may God bless his face'

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Lot Essay

The text here is written in an extremely elegant nasta'liq. The text from which it comes is a short one and it is unclear as to whether this folio would originally have been part of a larger manuscript, or one with just a few pages. The folio has been mounted up with a very elegant illuminated headpiece and on borders typical of those associated with the albums made for the Emperor Jahangir and Shah Jahan. The gold lattice of the borders is particularly fine and intricate. When one looks closely, you see that the floral sprays are inhabited by small insects in a manner similar to those on the borders of folios in the Shah Jahan album in the Metropolitan Museum of art (for example MMA.55.121.10.5V; published Stuart Cary Welch et al., The Emperors Album, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1987, pp.214-15, no.65).

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