Name: A COURTESAN EATING A TROPICAL FRUIT
Brand: MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1740
Price: 1800.00 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE GREEK COLLECTOR

A COURTESAN EATING A TROPICAL FRUIT
MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1740
Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the richly dressed lady depicted in profile wearing a translucent gold embroidered shawl and draped in multiple strings of pearls, set in a jharoka style frame with textiles above and below, scrolling floral vine border on wide margins decorated with a gold floral lattice, the reverse with an elegant black nasta'liq quatrain by Jalal al-Din Rumi signed al-mudhnib, outlines in gold on a ground of gold scrolls, in similar borders set within wide blue ground margins with a gold floral lattice composed of carnations
Painting 7¾ x 5in. (19.6 x 12.8cm.); folio 16 x 12in. (40.8 x 30.4cm.)

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Lot Essay

The pose and elaborate costume of this courtesan are very similar to a portrait of a bejewelled lady painted by Muhammad Afzal which was part of the Johnson Album and now is in the collection of India Office Library. Archer and Falk date that example to circa 1740 (Toby Falk and Mildred Archer, Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, London, 1981, no.179).The following lot comes from a Private Greek Collector. The present owner inherited it in 1965 from his uncle, Mr. Kleon Kittas. Kittas spent much of the early part of the 20th century in India. He was reported to have been an advisor on western art to several royal collectors there and to have received the manuscripts from a royal patron as a token of thanks for his crucial services.