MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1595-1600

Details

THE HEADS OF THE DEFEATED COMMANDERS ARE BROUGHT BEFORE TIMUR
MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1595-1600
Folio 60 from the Royal Mughal Zafarnama of Yazdi, opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, 3ll. of black nasta'liq above and two below, gold and polychrome rules, plain paper margins, illustration numbered '9' in red ink in the lower margin, the reverse with 16ll. black nasta'liq
Painting 4 7⁄8 x 3 5/8in. (12.5 x 9.3cm.); text panel 7 1⁄8 x 3 7/8in. (18.1 x 10.1cm.); folio 11 x 7 7/8in. (28 x 20.1cm.)

Provenance

Family Collection, by descent to the current owner, almost certainly from before 1900
In the UK since the 1970s

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

During his campaign in Transoxania Timur faced an army consisting of Qaraunas and assorted generals including Sulayman Yasuri, Barat Khwaja and Hindu Shah near Nauqat (Navkat in modern-day Uzbekistan). Timur defeated the numerically superior army, chasing them all the way to Jagdalik; the heads of the slain enemy commanders, including Uljaytu Taykhani and Pulad who had formerly been allied with Timur, were severed and brought before him. Timur ordered the bodies brought to Kish (Shahrisabz, Uzbekistan) to be buried. This event took place at some point between the autumn of AH 767⁄1365-6 AD and AH 769⁄1367-8 AD (For a translation of this episode, see Cherefeddin Ali (Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi), The History of Timur Bec, 2 vols., London, 1723, vol. 1, p. 97).

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