Provincial Mughal style in Oudh (Lucknow or Faizabad), c.1760. Attributed to Mir Kalan Khan
Gouache with gold on paper; 24.4 x 16.3 cm
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.b.3, no.10)
In the eighteenth century scenes of princes or princesses visiting the abodes of holy men, either Sufi dervishes or forest-dwelling Hindu yogis, had become a commonplace of Mughal painting. Sometimes these scenes are nocturnal, allowing a modified use of European chiaroscuro. This late treatment of the subject has an air of fantasy (and unusual religious syncretism) typical of the eclectic painter Mir Kalan Khan (29). A group of ladies have come by night to honour a white-bearded Muslim divine, seated by a tent or awning with garlanded Shi'ite religious standards; the leading noblewoman kneels to offer him a dish of pomegranates. Seated beside the shaikh is a venerable yogi with coiled, matted locks and grey, ash-smeared skin. Clasping a peacock-feather fan in the manner of an attendant, he too receives the ladies' respects. The other figures are a strange and fanciful party of grey-skinned and pink-garbed yogis, male and female, some only boys. They make music, smoke or perform a curious sword dance. The youth piping on a sinuous horn probably has a European antecedent. The densely leaved trees also show Western influence. With its deep contrasts of light and shade, this is a strongly moody variation on a well-known theme.
An episode from The Thousand and One Nights
Provincial Mughal style at Farrukhabad. c.1760-70
Gouache with gold and silver on paper; 24.5 x 18.3 cm
Bodleian Library (MS Pers.b.1, f,15r)
The wonder-tales and romances of the kind enjoyed by the young Akbar (1, 4) appealed as greatly as ever to the escapist mood of the late Mughal period, and were often illustrated at the courts of Oudh and elsewhere. The fantastic tale of Saif ul-Muluk. a prince of Egypt, and Badi' al-Jarnal. a princess of the Jinn ('genies' or superhuman beings) is taken from the great Arabic compendium, The Tiiousend and One Nights. As a result of earlier events, Prince Saif ul-Muluk falls irresistibly in love with a magical portrait of the Jinn princess. Only after worldwide travels, shipwrecks, kidnappings, the deployment of a magic ring and other interludes are the couple at last united. In this happy denouement Badi-al Jamal embraces her new husband as they speed along in a gold aerial palanquin borne by monstrous but amiable jinn. Winged feinale attendants fly alongside on swift and anoeuvrable puffy clouds, fanning the royal couple and plying them with grapes, fruits and celestial liquors. The forest below bursts with blossoms and fruit, the lake with lotuses. With its stylized, broad-cheeked figures and a general crowding of detail, such work stands near the end of the Mughal tradition. Yet the artist has still responded with zest and charm to the climax of the wonderful tale.
Gouache on paper; 27.5 x 33 ern: 23.6 x 33 ern
Bodleian Library (MS Douce Or.b.3, no.25, 31)
These treatments by a Hyderabad artist of a royal procession and a palace garden are enlivened by his playful experiments with perspective and borrowings from the European topographical prints that were reaching India in great numbers by the late eighteenth century. In the procession scene, a ruler riding in a bright yellow elephant howdah approaches a walled city over a long bridge with multiple gates. On either side, women bathe or wash clothes and ascetics gather in a grove. Dominated by a lofty citadel within several rings of walls, the city bears some resemblance to the old Fortress of Golconda, five miles from Hyderabad. Once prosperous and Famous for its diamond trade, Golconda had been the capital of the Qutubshahi Sultans (16)' before falling to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1687. The daily records of the early Nizams, rulers of Hyderabad From the eighteenth century, record their occasional brief stays at Golconda Fort, which was also used as a state prison.' The Nizarns ceremonious excursions to the old fortress must have inspired the present artist, who supplied much else (such as the distant hilltop towns) From his imagination. His human figures are stiff and undifferentiated, and his stabs at architectural recession are a jumble of divergent viewpoints. But this naivete is integral to his vision, along with a flair for detail and a rich Deccani palette. The idealised vision of a princely pleasure-garden is similarly overlaid with fantasy. Marble pavilions, terraces, cypresses, flower-beds and water-courses all march away to inconsistent vanishing-points. The garden is improbably peopled with a princess in the left pavilion, a prince in the right, and a European-hatted genLieman on the central terrace, all with their bevies of maids and musicians. Other ladies lounge with musical instruments in the foreground, and multi-coloured fish swim round a fountain. Stranger still are the distant European townscapes with exotic spires and towers. Another version of the subject by the same painter, in the Fondation Custodia, Paris, has an even stronger
European flavour and perspectival thrust.
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