Enrica Medugno
Senior Sale Coordinator
Lot 217
A nautch dancer seated with a nobleman on a terrace Delhi, circa 1825-30
Amended
22 May 2025, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £11,520 inc. premium
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Oliver White
Head of Department
A nautch dancer seated with a nobleman on a terrace
Delhi, circa 1825-30
Delhi, circa 1825-30
gouache and gold on paper, gold and black borders
271 x 210 mm.
271 x 210 mm.
Footnotes
The painting may with some confidence be attributed to a Delhi artist in the circa of Ghulam Murtaza Khan (1760-1840), who produced portraits of the imperial Mughal family and was also employed by the British. For examples of his work see J. P. Losty, M. Roy, Mughal India; Art, Culture and Empire, London 2012, pp. 208-210, nos. 149 and 150; W. Dalrymple and Y. Sharma (edd.), Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857, New York 2012.
For two other paintings in which the same woman appears see:
a) Sotheby's, Arts of the Islamic World, 19th October 2016, lot 208, subsequently offered in these rooms, Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art Online Sale, 20–28 October 2022, lot 118, seated in front of a window in a European-style chair, with a similar vase and low table with objects on the floor beside her, but facing in the opposite direction to our painting. Both Bonhams and Sotheby's described her as a princess.
b) Victoria and Albert Museum (acc. no. 03525(IS)); see M. Archer, Company Paintings: Indian Paintings of the British Period, London 1992, pp. 164-165, no. 145. The woman is this time shown standing (on the right of the painting, wearing a very similar head ornament) as part of a troupe of dancing-girls and musicians performing before an audience underneath a canopy on a terrace.
Further comparison, in terms of style and broad composition, can be drawn with two paintings depicting the Mughal Emperor Akbar II, and Maharajah Ranjit Singh, from a Delhi album of the 1830s depicting various rulers (see Christie's, Arts of India, 24th September 2003, lots 122 and 124); and a painting depicting two government ministers seated on a terrace with the same low balustrade and trees and bushes in the background, sold in these rooms, Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art Online Sale, 4th-18th June 2019, lot 68, and subsequently with Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch, Court Paintings from India and Persia, 2020, no. 22.
Saleroom notices
Additional note: the nautch dancer can confidently be identified as Sharfa of Hansi, a town in modern Haryana one hundred kilometres west of Delhi. This is based on the same woman appearing in a painting (standing at far right) of a troupe of dancing-girls and musicians performing underneath a canopy on a terrace in which every figure is named in Persian (Victoria and Albert Museum, acc. no. 03525(IS)).