Prince Aurangzeb standing in a landscape, holding a sword and a sarpech, a close copy after Bichitr, on a page from an album made for William Fraser

Mughal, circa 1800

Footnotes

Provenance
William Fraser (1784-1835).
Thence by descent in the Fraser family.

The painting is a close copy of a portrait of Prince Aurangzeb, by Bichitr, Mughal, circa 1640, sold at Sotheby's, Persian and Indian Manuscripts and Miniatures from the collection formed by the British Rail Pension Fund, 23rd April 1996, lot 9 (and previously also at Sotheby's Fine Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 17th October 1983, lot 65).
Another very similar portrait, circa 1645-50, also laid down on later borders, is in the Tapi Collection (A.99.2081).

For a painting of the Mughal officer Sundar Das Raja Bikramajit, also a circa 1800 copy of an original by Bichitr, with borders like ours, from the collection of William Fraser and James Baillee Fraser, see Simon Ray, Indian and Islamic Works of Art, 2013, no. 54.

Other related examples include:

A late 17th Century Mughal portrait laid down on an early 19th Century floral album page, see Sotheby's Oriental Manuscripts and Miniatures, 16th October 1996, lot 91.

A Mughal painting depicting Jahangir in the zenana, circa 1620, mounted on a page with floral borders like ours, see Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch, Indian and Persian Painting 1590-1840, New York 2014, no. 6 (where there is also a note on William Fraser's collecting habits in Delhi).

A portrait of Sayyid Abu'l Muzaffar Khan, an early 19th Century copy of a 17th Century original by Lalchand (in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and with the same fine floral borders, see Sotheby's New York, Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art, 6th October 1990, lot 74.

Two examples of circa 1800 in an earlier Mughal style on the same 'Fraser' floral borders, see E. Binney, Indian Miniature Painting from the Collection of Edwin Binney III: The Mughal and Deccani Schools, Portland 1973, p. 112, nos. 89 and 90 (and now in the San Diego Museum of Art).

Another painting from the album, depicting a prince holding a musket, sword and shield, was sold in these rooms, Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 14th November 2023, lot 142. For two late Mughal paintings, the first depicting the mystic poet Kabir, and the second a siege, both mounted on a large album page with the same borders, see lots 214 and 215 in the current sale.

Five pages from the same album, all but one with the same distinctive floral borders as the present lot, were sold at Sotheby's, Arts of the Islamic World, 3rd October 2012, lots 85-89, amongst a section (lots 81-102) of works formerly in his possession. The borders of lots 82 and 84-87 are particularly close to that of our painting, imitating 'high' Mughal 17th Century album pages. All were formerly possessed by William Fraser (1784-1835), and remained in the Fraser family until the album was dispersed (as lots 183-211) in the 1980 Sotheby's sale.