Enrica Medugno
Senior Sale Coordinator
Lot 172
The tomb of Humayun; the Alai Darwaza, or Alauddin Gate, Delhi Delhi, circle of Mazhar 'Ali Khan, circa 1840-60(2)
12 November 2024, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£1,500 - £2,000
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Oliver White
Head of Department
The tomb of Humayun; the Alai Darwaza, or Alauddin Gate, Delhi
Delhi, circle of Mazhar 'Ali Khan, circa 1840-60
Delhi, circle of Mazhar 'Ali Khan, circa 1840-60
watercolours on paper, black inner margins, nasta'liq inscriptions in lower border, pasted down on to later paper
113 x 160 mm.(2)
113 x 160 mm.(2)
Footnotes
The inscriptions read:
naqsha-yi maqbara-yi humayun padshah, 'painting of the tomb of Humayun Padshah'.
maqbara-yi hazrat imam zamn sahib-i qutb[?] minar, 'the tomb of Hazrat Imam Zamin, owner of the Qutb[?] Minar'.
The second painting in fact shows the 'Ala'i Darwaza with another building in front of it that does not much resemble the tomb of Imam Zamin – it is perhaps a composite view by an artist who had not been to the site. A similar drawing, with a similarly vague inscription, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (one of an album of fifteen paintings (4644:10/IS) depicting buildings in Delhi, Agra and Lucknow, dated to circa 1835, of a similar size to ours. A similar view of the tomb of Humayun is also one of an album of sixty in the V&A (IM.45-1923). See M. Archer, Company Paintings: Indian Paintings of the British Period, London 1992, pp. 145-149.
The artist Mazhar 'Ali Khan was active in Delhi around the middle of the 19th Century. He was the son of Ghulam 'Ali Khan (fl. 1817-52). For discussion of his work and milieu, see: J. P. Losty, M. Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire, London 2012, p. 229; J. P. Losty, 'Depicting Delhi: Mazhar Ali Khan, Thomas Metcalfe, and the topographical school of Delhi artists', in W. Dalrymple, Y. Sharma (edd.), Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857, London 2012, pp. 52-59; p. 165, cat. no. 73 (Jami Masjid); and for Ghulam 'Ali Khan, pp. 217-220; W. Dalrymple (ed.), Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company, London 2019, pp. 140-147.
For examples at auction see Christie's, Exploration and Travel with Visions of India, 21st September 2000, lot 332 (attributed to Mazhar 'Ali Khan), and 333 (Delhi School, circa 1840, closer to the size of our paintings).