Details
Pen and ink on paper, two figures stand in a landscape unloading their packs from the back of a camel, laid down with a series of gold-speckled coloured borders, one with large black nasta'liq inscription on gold-speckled pink card, the verso with a panel of 7ll. of black nasta'liq on buff card, laid down between gold speckled and illuminated blue and cream borders on wide gold-speckled pink margins, later owner's notes in the margin

Drawing 4⅛ x 2⅜in. (10.4 x 6.1cm.); folio 14⅞ x 10⅛in. (37.8 x 25.7cm.)

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Lot Essay

The subtle colour wash of this painting and the open sense of space are both typical features of the atelier established by Prince Salim at Allahabad. Prince Salim, who became the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (r.1605-1627), rebelled against his father Akbar (r.1542-1605) in 1599 and set up a rival court at Allahabad. The rival court was intended by Prince Salim to have all the same attributes as his father's imperial court at Agra. This of course included a royal atelier producing exquisite illustrated manuscripts at the request of the ruler. Prince Salim's great patronage of the arts is attested to by the fact that two great painters of the age, Balchand and Manohar, left the Imperial atelier to work for Prince Salim at Allahabad.

Our painting is very similar in style to an illustration ascribed to an artist called Husayn Chela in the Baburnama produced between 1597-1599 AD (M.S. Randhawa, Paintings of the Babur Nama, New Delhi, 1983, fig.189, p.118). Husayn, in both his illustration for the Baburnama and in our painting shows a great sense of geometry in his composition. The small trees in their windswept positions clinging to the rocks in our painting are also very similar to shrubbery depicted in an illustration ascribed to Ustad Husayn from a copy of the Anwar-i suhayli attributed to circa 1604-1611 AD in the British Library (Inv. Add. 18579; J.V.S. Wilkinson, The Lights of Canopus, London, 1929, f.12). It is likely that Husayn Chela and Ustad Husayn are ascriptions referring to the same artist. This would indicate that our present work was also executed by Husayn at the court of Prince Salim in Allahabad.


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