Lot 47
A DETACHED ALBUM PAGE: MUHAMMAD TAQI KHAN, ONE OF THE EMIRS OF THE EMPEROR JAHANGIR ‡
INDIA, FAIZABAD OR LUCKNOW, CIRCA 1770
Auction: 10 December 2025 from 14:00 GMT
Description
gouache on paper heightened in gold, with dark blue and gold quatrefoil continuous inner border within red and blue margin lines, gold sprinkled outer border with nastal'iq inscription-filled cartouche, depicting the Emir in profile facing left dressed in a purple jama with a gold floral pattern, a sword and katar tucked into his gold and red floral patka, orange and gold pantaloons, yellow slippers, a green and gold turban, holding a little rose in his right hand, mounted, glazed and framed
Dimensions
38.4cm x 26.3cm
Provenance
Hampel Auktionshaus, 1 July 2011, lot 1240.
Lempertz, Asiatische Kunst, 8 June 2013.
The collection of a German enthusiast.
Footnote
Inscriptions:
tasvir-muhammad taqi khan-I umara-I jahangir, depiction of Muhammad Tak Khan [one] of the amirs of Jahangir.
This striking portrait mounted on to a large album page, possibly belongs to an album assembled by the Mughal nobleman Najm al-Din 'Ali Khan or by Nawab Shuja' al-Daula of Oudh. The album pages are all characterised by their gold-sprinkled outer border, inscription-filled cartouche in nasta'liq script generally beginning with the Persian word ‘tasvir-’ followed by the name of the subject of the painting, in addition to an inner narrow border decorated in gold against a dark blue ground. There are several of these album pages in the Chester Beatty collection in Dublin (see L. Leach, Mughal and Other Indian Paintings, 1995, Vol. II, pp.654-6). Perhaps a painting that can be most compared to ours, in terms of style, is one attributed to the artist, Bahadur Singh, see opp. cit, no. 6.238, p. 662. It depicts a Turkish mullah within a similar landscape setting. Leach attributes it to the artist, Bahadur Singh, given a virtually identical painting in the British Library which is signed by the artist.
Another group of sixteen folios with the same borders was formerly in the collection of Hon. Stephen Tennant, reputedly acquired by him on the advice of his friend E. M. Forster (see Sotheby's London, 14 December 1987, lots 25-40). Further paintings from the same original group were in the Pozzi collection, while others have appeared at auction in at Sotheby's, 1 June 1987, lot 16, at Christie's London, 25 April 2013, lot 175, and Hotel Drouot, Paris, 16 December 1988, lots 19-20.