The popular tale Yusuf wa Zulaikha of Jami follows the complicated romance between Yusuf (Joseph) and Zulaikha, wife of the Egyptian official Potiphar. This finely executed painting signed by Muhammad Nadir al-Samarqandi portrays a scene in which the young Zulaikha dreams of Yusuf, establishing her enduring love before she encounters him as a grown woman. Zulaikha is depicted on a bed in the center of her bedchamber, comfortably wrapped in a bright orange blanket, dreaming of her true love as attendants sleep beside her on the floor. Her gently parted lips reveal a sweet smile as she envisions her spiritual husband. A palace wall topped with two chattris spans the background and a hexagonal pavilion juts out behind the figures. On the second tier of the pavilion, the painting is inscribed:
I have no confidence in my work
It is with your greatness that I gain my hope
In the year of AH 1015
The humble servant, Muhammad Nadir
In the early seventeenth century, during the reign of the Mughal emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27), Muhammad Nadir was already well-regarded in the imperial atelier, and was commissioned to create an album of ‘Portraits of Hindu Princes and Chiefs’ now in the British Museum Collection, one of which depicts Akbar’s youngest son Prince Daniyál (acc. no. 1920,0917,0.13.34). Throughout the reign of emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58) he continued to work in Kashmir, and it was there that he created the present painting.
The present lot belongs to a mid-seventeenth century illustrational cycle of Jami’s Yusuf wa Zulaikha attributed to Muhammad Nadir. Five illustrations from this series are in the Chester Beatty Library collection (acc. nos. 31.2-4, 31.7-8) illustrated by L. Leach in Mughal and Other Indian Paintings in the Chester Beatty Library, vol. II, Dublin, 1995, pp. 927-941. Five further known paintings from the series by Muhammad Nadir are thought to have been separated from the Beatty illustrations before the early nineteenth century when the album was bound.
The present illustration is the only signed work by Muhammad Nadir that is also dated. However, the inscribed date of AH 1015 (1606-07) is inconsistent with the amount of chiaroscuro in the painting, which did not generally appear in Mughal painting until the 1630s. One explanation for this discrepancy comes from Dr. John Seyller of the University of Vermont, who asserts the inscribed date of AH 1015 may have been mistakenly transposed from AH 1051; an explanation that dates the painting to 1641-42, consistent with this illustrational cycle’s attributed dates between 1636 and 1660.
Compare the present lot with another dispersed folio from the series, ‘Yusuf and Zulaikha Meet in a Garden,’ formerly in the Edwin Binney 3rd collection and now at the San Diego Museum of Art (acc. no. 1990:354), illustrated by P. Pal in The Arts of Kashmir, New York, 2007, p. 155, fig. no. 166. The artist uses vibrant color and includes non-naturalistic Persian-style elements such as the heavy shading around the edges of the figures, which is also seen in the present painting. The women are depicted with long ovular faces, manneristic features, and wear Kashmiri-style headdresses. The pavilion in the San Diego painting is strikingly similar to the pavilion in the present lot; both structures are hexagonal in shape and three-dimensionally rendered. A composition similar to the present painting can be seen in a folio in the Chester Beatty Library collection entitled ‘Zulaikha’s Friends Cut Their Fingers on Seeing the Beauty of Yusuf’ (acc. no. 31.8) illustrated by L. Leach, in ibid., p. 941. In both paintings, the figures are arranged in a circle in the foreground with a palace wall dominating the composition behind them. The frontmost figures on the left of each painting are also depicted in nearly the same position.
The style of the present lot is consistent with the other known works by this idiosyncratic Mughal artist. He demonstrates his Kashmiri and Persianate origins very clearly, and yet does so in a new way, incorporating many Mughal elements. It is rare enough to encounter one of his works; that it should be both signed and dated is unique.
Special thanks to Dr. John Seyller for his assistance with this lot.
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