A LOOSE INDIAN COURTLY ALBUM WITH ENTHRONED PORTRAITS OF MUGHAL EMPERORS AND THEIR ANCESTORS
PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION
Delhi School, Mughal Northern India, first half 19th century

Opaque pigments, ink, and gold on wove paper, comprising eight vertical-format portraits of Mughal Emperors and their Timurid ancestors seated on golden thrones on a courtly terrace overlooking lush gardens and natural backgrounds, each sitter identified by characterising attributes, favoured attire, and turban models, encased within concentric decorative borders in polychromes and gold, the pictorial style typical of Late Mughal Delhi School official portraits in both three-quarters and profile views, each album page numbered in the upper left corner and accompanied by black ink nominal inscriptions identifying the portrayed ruler, the front top golden border with inscriptions in cursive English, the oval golden cartouches above each sitter and the reverse in Persian nasta’liq script, the reverse marked with a rectangular dynastic grid in-filled with names, dates and brief biographical details, each mounted, glazed and framed, each album page approx. 29cm x 19cm, 46cm x 35.5cm including the frame.

These eight finely painted portraits were most likely once part of an Indian courtly album collecting the likenesses and official portraits of Mughal rulers and elite members of the court, linking their dynastic heritage directly to the Central Asian Timurids. For an analogous example, please see Sotheby’s Dubai, 13 November 2013, lot 71. The represented sitters are named as follows: Timur (d. 1405); Miran Shah, son of Timur (d. 1408); Sultan Umar Sheikh Mirza II, son of Abu Sa'id Mirza (d. 1494); Emperor Babur, son of Umar Sheikh Mirza II and founder of the Mughal dynasty (d. 1530); Emperor Jahangir, son of Akbar (d. 1627); Jahandar Shah, son of Bahadur Shah (d. 1713); Muhammad Shah, grandson of Bahadur Shah (d. 1748); and lastly, Ahmad Shah Bahadur, son of Muhammad Shah (d. 1775). Each portrait is numbered in the upper left corner, starting from number 1 with Timur and finishing with number 19 with Ahmad Shah Bahadur. Originally, the album would have most certainly contained other portraits of Mughal emperors, such as Akbar and Shah Jahan, as well as the last three members of the dynasty ruling in the first half of the 19th century, who elected Delhi as their capital and settled there until the British forces took over.

Portraiture has always played a crucial role in the development of the visual arts of South Asia. From the dawn of the Indian civilisation onward, the figural image encountered in sculptures, coins, architectural settings, and frescoes acted as a powerful reminder of the dharmic hierarchy ruling the world. Nevertheless, until the early 17th century, when the Mughal Empire was fully formed and established in these lands, portraits were often derived from conventional representations with repeating, standard lakshanas (identifying qualities or cognitive attributes) rather than individual likenesses. One of the most remarkable artistic achievements accomplished by the Mughals in India was to foster and spearhead the emergence of portraits of identifiable individuals, unprecedented in both South Asia and the Islamic World (Portraiture in South Asia Since the Mughals: Art, Representation and History, ed. Crispin Branfoot, 2018, pp. 1 - 3). It is known that Mughal Emperors Akbar and Jahangir were eager collectors of portraits of courtly personalities and must have been impressed by specimens of European portraiture, which circulated at their courts thanks to both diplomatic exchanges with the West and the three Jesuits' missions between the 1580s and 1590s (S. Stronge, Painting for the Mughal Emperor: the Art of the Book 1560 – 1660, 2002, p. 120). Such fascination is best recorded in the A’in-I Akbari, where Abu’l Fazl mentions that 'the Emperor (Akbar) ordered to have the likenesses (surat) of all the grandees of the realm. An immense book was thus formed: those who have passed away, have now received a new life, and those who are still alive, have immortality promised them'.

Despite the keen 'turn to the individual' promoted in the visual arts under Akbar's and Jahangir's reigns, Mughal portraiture and the formalisation of a 'stately image' reached their most accomplished form in the mid to late 17th century, under the rule and patronage of Shah Jahan (The Indian Portrait 1560 – 1860, ed. Rosemary Crill and Kapil Jariwala, 2010, p. 12). By this stage, it had been established that official portraits of Mughal emperors must show the sitter in profile, and not in the Persian-style three-quarters view, as it was considered less formal and thus, reserved to lesser noble members of the court (Ibidem, p. 102). Testifying this rule, our eight portraits are divided into two groups: the four sitters of direct Central Asian lineage are all shown in three-quarters, following Persian portraiture's conventions; whilst the remaining four rulers of the Mughal dynasty are shown in profile. The use of both views in the same album set has been explained by scholars as the Mughal artists' conscious attempt to create historical distance between the current rulers and their ancestors (Laura Parodi in Portraiture in South Asia Since the Mughals: Art, Representation and History, ed. Crispin Branfoot, 2018, pp. 9 - 10). Nevertheless, their Central Asian heritage is exemplified in the Mughals' passion for record-keeping and their keen interest in historical and observational documentation, which are mirrored in the visual arts commissioned at the time. Timurid rulers had already shown an attraction towards physiognomy and figural studies in the 15th century (Ibidem, pp. 64 - 65). As a consequence, their artistic legacy influenced the canons set and followed by their descendants, and the Mughals were no different. Initially through the collection of Timurid studies, and then later on, with the commission of new official royal portraits, the Mughals aimed at not only vaunting their prestigious dynastic descent but also immortalising themselves and their courts through the means of portraiture.

The sacks of Delhi in 1739 and 1756 and internal dynastic frictions placed a temporary halt in the courtly production, but the first half of the 19th century witnessed a late flowering, a so-called last hurrah, for Mughal portraiture. Before the final dissolution of the Empire in 1858, artists working at the Delhi courtly atelier, such as Khayrallah and Ghulam Murtaza Khan, produced extremely fine portraits of Mughal rulers and their descent, blending features of the 16th and 17th-century production with a new naturalism derived from Western portrait models (J. P. Losty in The Indian Portrait 1560 – 1860, ed. Rosemary Crill and Kapil Jariwala, 2010, p. 44). The Delhi artists' attempt to revive the dynasty's past glories and distinguished lineage despite the Empire's decline led to the creation of a few high-calibre portrait courtly albums and the group in the present lot must have been among them.