PROVINCIAL MUGHAL, SECOND HALF 18TH CENTURY

The scene of women drawing water at a well to serve to a male traveller was a popular one in 17th and 18th century Mughal painting but this painting is particularly closely comparable to another of the same composition by the artist Mihr Chand, circa 1765-70, sold in Christie's New York, 23 March 2022, lot 483. In addition to the subject matter both the Mihr Chand painting and the present painting are the same size and mounted into the same blue borders with inner and outer gold rules. Both paintings were also originally mounted onto an album page with a section of the Bustan on Sa'adi on the reverse written in elegant nasta'liq. Given these parallels it is plausible to think that both works were part of the same original album or, more likely, from two albums, one of which made as a close copy of the other.