gouache and gold on paper, laid down on an album page with gold-decorated inner border and ruled inner margins, gold-sprinkled outer borders, Persian and English inscriptions in lower border
painting 208 x 143 mm.; album page 385 x 257 mm.

Footnotes

Provenance
Formerly in the collection of Robert Ditzinger, Sweden, 1950s (backboard with typewritten letter, dated 3rd November 1957), addressed to Robert Schroff, Director of the NationalMuseum, Stockholm, giving details of identifications of this painting (and others) by W. G. Archer, Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Persian inscription reads: hazrat-e rabi' [sic] basri, 'Her Holiness Rabi' [Rabi'ah] Basri.

Rabi'ah Basri was an 8th Century mystic and sufi who was born into poverty and lived a life of asceticism in the wilderness. Her story was most famously told by the later sufi saint and poet Farid ud-Din Attar. The scene depicted here seems to be in the tradition of the more common depictions of another sufi ascetic, Ibrahim Adham, which was popular and frequently depicted in Mughal painting of the 18th Century.

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- Islamic and Indian Art
- Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art

The Muslim saint, Rabi'ah Basri, fed by angels in the wilderness Mughal, late 18th Century

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Matthew Thomas