Lot 43
A PORTRAIT OF AN EUROPEAN NOBLE LADY ‡
MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1750
Auction: 10 December 2025 from 14:00 GMT
Description
gouache and gold on paper, black and gold margin rules with cream border within a gold floral and green narrow border, green and gold lattice outer border, depicting an oval bust portrait of a lady in profile facing right, wearing a red dress with green trimmings and pearls, holding a small white feather in her left hand, verso with Arabic inscriptions comprising a qasida
Dimensions
28.5cm x 20.5cm
Provenance
Collection Friederich Sarre (1865-1945); thence by descent, and; Auktionshaus Rotherbaum, Hamburg, 122. Weihnachts Auktion, 12 December 2020, lot 449.
Friedrich Paul Theodor Sarre (1865 - 1945) was a German Orientalist, archaeologist, and art historian known for his extensive collection of Islamic art. Possibly the attraction to this miniature, in addition to the story, is the Arabic calligraphy on the reverse, which would explain why it formed his collection. Sarre also traveled widely throughout the Middle East, collecting artworks - particularly from Persia and Constantinople. His collection was first exhibited in Berlin in 1899 and later in Paris at the Exposition des arts musulmans (1903). He donated most of these works to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin, where he served as director of the Islamic Department from 1921 to 1931.
The collection of a German enthusiast.
Footnote
The Arabic qasida on the reverse is by Zabban b. Sayyar al-Fazari about the poet al-Hadira.
European oil paintings and prints were taken to India during the 16th and 17th centuries by the British and Portuguese. Mughal artists made a practice of painting their own versions of portraits of noble personages, a tradition that was continued on into the 18th century. This particular portrait of a European noble woman with a European coiffure is a fine example of this European influence on Mughal painting.
For further discussion and comparisons see, E. Binney, The Mughal and Deccani Schools, Indian Miniature Painting from the Collection of Edwin Binney, 3rd.,Portland, Oregon, 1973, no. 87, and; Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts, Indian and Persian Miniatures, Bibliotheca Phillippica, Part IX, Sotheby & Co., 27th October, 1974, lots 805 and 810. Lot 810 is possibly the same sitter.