Four illustrations from a Janamsakhi manuscript, a life of Guru Nanak

Provincial Mughal, probably Murshidabad, late 18th Century

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Footnotes

Provenance
Private UK collection: acquired at Hamilton's, Calcutta, in 1973, by a relative of the current owners.

The Janamsakhis (literally, 'life stories') were first compiled in the 17th Century, in various different versions. They consist of collections of anecdotes or tales (sakhi), not always in any particular order, and also include quotations from the Adi Granth as well as other apocryphal sayings of the Guru.

They naturally lent themselves to illustration (though images were also produced as paintings in themselves, divorced from any text). For example, an almost complete Janamsakhi manuscript produced in Kabul, Afghanistan, dated 1797, with 538 leaves and 71 stories, had 106 illustrations, of various sizes, and was described as the most richly-decorated example known. Fifteen of these stories dealt with Guru Nanak's life before he received divine inspiration; the remainder dealt with his missionary journeys, in which he travelled throughout India and elsewhere for twenty-four years, spreading his message. See Sam Fogg, Indian Paintings and Manuscripts, London 1999, p. 128, no. 83.

It has not been possible to identify the exact stories portrayed in our four paintings, though it appears that Guru Nanak is depicted at both a relatively young age, with the full black beard and red hat with upturned brim in which he is seen in other paintings, as in the examples at auction given below; but also as a mendicant or fakir-like figure.

See P. M. Taylor, S. Dhami (edd.), Sikh Art from the Kapany Collection, Palo Alto 2017, pp. 99-115, for a discussion of the Janamsakhi and the portrayal of Guru Nanak's life. For a variety of paintings portraying Guru Nanak and images from Janamsakhi manuscripts, see P. M. Taylor (ed.), Splendors of Punjab Heritage: Art from the Khanuja Family Collection, 2022, pp. 32-43, esp. p. 43. For a discussion of Janamsakhi texts in general, see C. Shackle, Catalogue of the Panjabi and Sindhi Manuscripts in the India Office Library, London 1977, pp. 19-23.

See the sale in these rooms, Islamic and Indian Art, 2nd October 2012, lot 206, for a group of four similar Janamsakhi illustrations (also acquired from Hamilton's, in 1967). For other paintings from a Janamsakhi series in a similar style, see Christie's, Islamic and Indian Manuscripts and Works on Paper, 23rd April 2012, lot 319 and 320.