Mughal, c.1730, and 1738-39 (by Bhupal inqh).
respectively
Gouache with gold on paper; 31.2 x 46.8 ern: 34 x 45.9 cm
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.a.3, f.14; MS Douce Or.b.3, no.22)
In these two paintings the sybaritic Emperor Muhammad Shah (23) is shown taking his ease among
marble halls with his courtiers, ladies and musicians. Cool whites and greys dominate these palace scenes, relieved by colourful rugs and hangings placed with geometrical formality. The court no longer appears thronged by officials and attendants, as in earlier periods. The empty palatial spaces verge on a melancholy vacuity; the human figures in them can also appear remote.
There is still great refinement in the symmetrical selling in which the hookah-smoking Emperor receives his courtiers round an ornamental pool (24), the shadowy central doorway behind him flanked by uniform rows of furled blinds and wall-niches with flower-vases or fruits. The schematic rectangularity is accentuated by the bold vertical red poles (to support an awning), which also frame the figures of Muhammad Shah and four of his ministers or governors. These individuals were as corrupt and ambitious as the Emperor was incompetent. Those on the right are identified as Khan Dauran and the minister Qamaruddin Khan(?). On the left are Saadat Khan Burhan al-Mulk and (with a prominent belly) Roshan ud-Daula, a wealthy intriguer who fell into disgrace in 1732. The same symmetries of architecture and coloring are seen, from a more distanced viewpoint, in
Muhammad Shah playing Holi with ladies (25). Holi is a lively, often rowdy, rite of spring, in which coloured powder and water are hurled about with abandon. In observing this Hindu festival Muhammad Shah was reverting to the cultural syncretism of Akbar. An energetic Holi battle has clearly already been waged on the colour-stained marble terraces: the Emperor holds both a water-syringe and a powder missile at the ready. But he appears stilled and captivated by the Holi song of the singer Gulab Bai and her band.
Mughal, c.1740
Gouache with gold and silver on paper; 27 x 36.3 ern
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.b.3, no.29)
A Mughal nobleman in hunting green, identified as Jamalullah Khan, takes aim with the matchlock resting on an attendant's shoulder and shoots a blackbuck which has been lured by tame decoy deer. Similar hunting subjects appear in Mughal painting from the Shah Jahan period onwards. Like much eighteenth century work, this is a variation on a familiar theme, in this case piquantly combined with the subject of ladies bathing. The receding hilly landscape, influenced by European models, reveals riverine vistas and distant townscapes under a sky suffused with gold. The prince's retinue waits behind a wooded rise on the left. In the center, prominently superimposed on the landscape indeed overpainted on it, and hence an afterthought is an enclosed tank with domed corner pavilions and flowering lotuses. Here women fetch water or bathe, in playful contrast to the solemn watchfulness of the hunters.
Baz Bahadur and Rupmati
Kulu (7), Punjab Hills, c.1720
Gouache with gold and silver on paper; 21 x 25.7 ern
Ashmolean Museum (1958.307; Gift of Prof R. C. Oldfield)
A cultivated prince and gifted singer, the Muslim Sultan Baz Bahadur of Malwa was devoted to the company of musicians and dancing-girls. His favourite was Rupmati, a celebrated beauty who became his constant companion. Their idyll ended when Baz Bahadur was defeated by the Mughal general Adham Khan in 1561. His harem fell into enemy hands and Rupmati took poison to escape dishonor. The love of Baz Bahadur and his Hindu mistress became a popular theme of poetry and song in late Mughal India. At the provincial Mughal courts and in the Punjab Hills the lovers were commonly depicted riding together, often on moonlit nights. Such romantic themes had a strong appeal for the Muslim and Hindu nobility alike, for whom the conventions of purdah precluded free association between the sexes.
In this painting the lovers' horses advance in step, wild-eyed and with teeth bared. Baz Bahadur, a hawk held on his gloved wrist gazes entranced at Rupmati, who turns in the saddle to regard him. Their figures are silhouetted against a cool grey ground, around which compact, bushy trees cluster in quasi-amorous pairs, entwined with sinuous creepers and trailing lissom fronds. A strong red border, common in Rajput painting, complements the scene.
Hunters and a tiger in a landscape
Hyderabad. Deccan, mid-eighteenth century
Gouache with gold and silver on paper; 21.6 x 39.5 cm
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.a.3, f.8)
The strong current of poetic fantasy in Deccani painting appears in this bird-filled landscape, with palms and out crops of heaped boulders like those around Hyderabad, under a qold-stacked sky with flying cranes. Recession and scale are treated in an ad hoc way: a tree of great size grows on the far right. Towards the centre, a large snake is coiled round a tree, while another is apparently immolated in a fire. Also enigmatic in its symbolism is the main subject of three hunters in khaki and green, whose approach seems already to have been sensed by the alert blackbuck. The prominent, pale-skinned leading figure is perhaps intended for a nobleman. He holds a flower-sprig and light stick, and, more curiously, wears a cobra entwined in his belt. The second huntsman holds two decoy deer on leashes. The third figure looks back unperturbedly at the tiger with bared fangs padding docilely behind them. This unusual scene evidently illustrates a poetic theme: the hunters, who are also the keepers of the tiger, are engaged in a hunt of an allegorical kind. A Persian verse inscribed on a sheet attached to the painting can be translated: 'The lion [or tiger-keepers are hunting heaviness of heart.'
Actors performing a drama Provincial Mughal style in Oudh (Lucknow or Faizabad), c.1760. Attributed to Mir Kalan Khan
Gouache with gold and silver on paper;
32.8 x 19.6 cm
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.b.3, nO.20)
A melodramatic entertainment is staged in a rustic grove. Above, an actor playing a young prince strikes a protective pose beside a bashfully half-veiled lady, while another warrior figure withdraws. In front of them, a female singer and musicians perform before a portly lord, also presumably part of the play since he lounges grandly against a crouching man pretending to be his pillow, and he is fanned with a leafy branch by a buffoon with a slipper tied to his turban.On the right, watching this exciting or droll goings-on, are a seated noblewoman smoking a hookah, who is given a running commentary by an old crone, and a raffish group of wine-drinkers including a bespecLacled greybeard. The mood of intoxicated abandon or deranged hilarity is further accentuated by the figures in the foreground, including some Hindu ascetics, who are sieving, pounding and no doubt consuming bhang marijuana). One thirsty bhangi receives a drink of water from a bhisti (water-carrier). Two others play on a jcw's harp and an empty clay pot. This eccentric gathering shows a witty improvisation on different genre subjects (a lady watching ail entertainment; assemblies of holy men or drug addicts), attributable to the virtuoso eclectic artist Mir Kalan Khan.
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