An album of sixty paintings depicting Sikh rulers, monuments, and tradespeople

Punjab, Lahore, circle of the artist Imam Bakhsh Lahori, circa 1840-60

Footnotes

See the previous lot for discussion of the attribution to Imam Bakhsh Lahori or his circle.

For similar albums, apparently often acquired by British servicemen and visitors to the Punjab, see the sales in these rooms, Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art, 30th April 2019, lot 212; 26th October 2020, lot 268; 30th March 2021, lot 124; 25th October 2021, lot 334; and various other instances of single paintings or groups of paintings from dispersed albums.

Mildred Archer notes that specific inscriptions indicated these albums were intended for a British audience. One such book in the British Library contains the inscription; 'All the sahibs take it to show in England' (Archer, Company Drawings in the India Office Library, London 1972, p. 209) while the present album also contains the inscription, 'All Gentlemen buy this book and send it to London' on the final page. One such collector was Maharajah Duleep Singh's guardian, Sir John Login. In his letters he notes: 'the little Maharaja has been collecting for me drawings and paintings done by his best painters. Some are very curious and interesting indeed, representing domestic life in the Punjab, and various trades and professions. He also selected authentic likenesses of great chiefs and men of note'.

For a similar album sold in these rooms see Bonhams, Islamic and Indian Art including Sikh Treasures and Arts of the Punjab, 25th October 2021, lot 334.


The subjects of the paintings are as follows, in order:
Maharajahs Ranjit Singh and Sher Singh.
Maharajah Duleep Singh and Maharani Jindan Kaur ('Queen Jindan').
Sardar Chattar Singh Atariwala and Maharajah Gulab Singh of Jammu and Kashmir.
Diwan Moolraj and Sirdar Sher Singh Atariwala.
Ali Akbar Khan and Dost Muhammad, rulers of Afghanistan.
An archer or hunter and another man carrying a load.
A man wrestling a bear.
A man grinding meal with the use of a tethered oxen.
Two seated men, one smoking a hookah, the other using a pestle and mortar.
A rifleman and a drummer.
The Badshahi Mosque in Lahore.
The Tomb of Maharajah Ranjit Singh, Lahore.
A man winding cloth (?) and his wife, smoking a hookah.
Wazir Khan's Mosque, Lahore.
The Golden Mosque, Lahore.
The Badshahi Mosque, Delhi.
The Mausoleum of Jahangir, Lahore.
The Golden Temple, Amritsar.
The Shalimar Gardens, Lahore.
The Qutb Minar, Delhi.
The Taj Mahal, Agra.
A woman selling pottery.
A snake charmer and another entertainer.
An akali and his wife.
Two finely-dressed Begums, mother and daughter.
A woman of Kashmir, and a woman of Kabul.
A woman of the Punjab, and another woman, apparently Maharani Jindan Kaur.
Two carpenters.
Two men, perhaps entertainers with whistles, or perhaps fakirs.
Two fakirs wearing animal skins.
Two men spinning cotton.
Two men sitting over braziers and vessels, perhaps cooks.
A barber shaving a customer's head.
A vegetable seller.
A man carding cotton (?) and his wife.
A shoemaker.
Two men preparing food.
Two metalworkers.
A man and a woman carding wool.
Two fakirs carrying rattles, one perhaps intoxicated.
A sepoy in a red tunic, and his wife.
A dyer of cloth.
A bhishti or water-seller.
A female acrobat and a male drummer.
A man splitting wood, and a porter.
A male and female textile-maker.
Armourers making sword hilts.
Women spinning.
A man tending a still, and another drinking beside it.
Two women carrying trays of produce.
An entertainer with two monkeys and a goat.
A party of musicians and a nautch girl.
A man with a loaded mule and a woman carrying a tray.
Two sepoy riflemen.
Two dervishes.
Two furniture makers.
An irrigation wheel turned by an oxen, with three farmworkers.
A doctor attending a sick patient and his wife.
Two sellers of cloth.
Two fakirs cutting themselves with knives.