Lot 284
A fine page of illumination in gold Deccan, Golconda or Bijapur, circa 1600
25 October 2021, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £2,550 inc. premium
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A fine page of illumination in gold
Deccan, Golconda or Bijapur, circa 1600
Deccan, Golconda or Bijapur, circa 1600
gold leaf on coloured paper, recto a scene of birds amidst foliage on a blue ground, the outer borders with similar illumination on a red ground; verso, a slightly trimmed section of the same design in gold on a black ground, laid down on later plain borders
page 173 x 101 mm.; section of illumination verso 113 x 59 mm.
page 173 x 101 mm.; section of illumination verso 113 x 59 mm.
Footnotes
A small number of examples of these striking Deccani pages have appeared at auction or are in private collections. In this instance, the panels on blue, red and (verso) black grounds all depict birds perched amidst foliage, in a manner extremely similar to that found on a page of illumination once in the possession of Stuart Cary Welch (see Sotheby's, The Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Part One: Arts of the Islamic World, 6th April 2011, lot 102). Comparison can be drawn with border illumination in Golconda manuscripts of the late 16th and early 17th Century, as well as the robes and other pieces of textiles depicted in portraits of Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur (see, for example, M. Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, London 1983, figs. 49 and 50). The Welch example mentioned here had borders composed of nasta'liq calligraphy excised from another manuscript.
Another very similar page is in the Kronos Collection, New York, which appears to be the pair to the Welch example: they probably formed the doublures of the binding of a manuscript of high quality. The gold leaf was laid down over coloured paper grounds, then worked away into the desired patterns with a stencil and a resist-application method. See N. Najat Haidar and M. Sardar (edd.), Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy, New York 2015, p. 212, no. 105.
There were further examples with Francesca Galloway: see A Prince's Eye: Imperial Mughal Painting from a Princely Collection. Art from the Indian Courts, London 2013, pp. 114 and 116-119, nos. 25 and 26.