Asian and African studies blog

In two recent posts I examined a largely unpublished album of 18^th century paintings associated with the Deccan and with the Maratha courts and prior to those posts a newly acquired portrait of Ikhlas Khan, the African minister of the Bijapur sultans.  In this new post I want to look at some other Deccani items acquired since the publication of the Falk and Archer catalogue of Indian miniatures in 1981.  The first is associated with the artist Muhammad Khan, who is well known for his portraits of Sultan Muhammad ‘Adil Khan of Bijapur (reg. 1627-57) and notables of his court.  Two of these portraits are in the British Library (Johnson Album 1,9 and Add.Or.2770, see Falk and Archer 1981, nos. 405-406), while others are in the British Museum and in collections in India and the USA (Zebrowski 1983, pp.127-31).  He signs himself as the son of Miyan Chand, presumably another artist, none of whose work is now known.  Not at all known is the work of his son, Muhammad Husayn, one of whose works was acquired for the collection in 1985.  This is a head and shoulders portrait of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (reg. 1605-27), a version of one of the bust portraits of that emperor done in the Mughal court during his reign. 

The Emperor Jahangir.  By Muhammad Husayn, son of Muhammad Khan.  Bijapur, 1660-70.  Opaque water-colour with gold.  Oval: 112 by 78 mm.  Add.Or.4243.

It is inscribed in Persian on the gold rim of the oval: Mashq-i Muhammad Husayn ibn Muhammad Khan Musavvir (‘copy by Muhammad Husayn son of Muhammad Khan the painter’).  This appears to be the first reference to Muhammad Khan’s son also being a painter.  It is certainly not the equal of his father’s work, but then it may of course be the work of an apprentice as suggested by the unusual term mashq (i.e.copy).

Another copied painting acquired in that same year is also linked with Bijapur.  This shows the founder of the Bijapur dynasty Sultan Yusuf ‘Adil Shah (reg. 1509-11) enthroned with the next four monarchs of Bijapur and being handed the key of royal authority by a Persian figure.  To his right, and slightly smaller and below him, are kneeling his two immediate successors Isma’il (d.1534) and Ibrahim I (d.1557), and likewise to his left are ‘Ali I (d.1579) and Ibrahim II (d.1626).  Attendants behind carry parasols above the sultans.  The painting is by a Deccani artist, apparently about 1750, after a lost Bijapuri original of c.1610.  It is inscribed on a cover sheet in Persian: Majlis-i ‘Adil Shah badshah ma’ah nazdikan  (‘assembly of King Adil Shah with his relatives’).

The first five Sultans of Bijapur.  By a Deccani artist, c.1750, after a lost Bijpur original of c.1610.  Opaque water-colour with gold.  180 by 272 mm.  Add.Or.4242 

A larger version of this scene including all the Bijapuri Sultans up to the last one Sikandar (reg. 1672-86) is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Zebrowski 1983, pl.  XVII).  The New York version would appear to be an accession portrait linking Sikandar with his ancestors back to the founder of the dynasty, who is receiving the keys of royal authority from his Shia co-sectarian Shah Isma’il of Iran.  Our painting would appear to be after a painting that is not an accession portrait but a statement of Ibrahim II’s royal authority, since he is painted fully mature and with a beard; the original would have been the beginning of a tradition of such paintings which added each new ruler at the appropriate time. 

A well-known painting showing a lady lying pining on her couch for her absent lover is one of the most important paintings from Hyderabad in the Richard Johnson Collection.

A lady pining for her absent lover.  Hyderabad, c. 1740-50.  Opaque pigments with gold and silver.  215 by 150 mm. Johnson Album 50, 4. 

The duenna bends down to whisper to the recumbent lovelorn lady about her absent lover, perhaps suggesting his imminent arrival, while her two maids look at each other knowingly. There is real interaction between the two pairs of women.  The scene is set at night with a full moon and a pair of white cranes starkly silhouetted against the dark background, while the lady’s agitation is suggested by the breeze ruffling the canopy.  Even the cranes seem to have paused in their flight to comment to each other on the goings-on below them. 

A lady pining for her absent lover.  Hyderabad, c. 1740-50.  Brush drawing with gold.  170 by 132 mm.  Add.Or.5695. 

A closely related drawing was acquired in 2010.  The attention to detail in this lively drawing makes it look very finished and not at all a preliminary drawing for anything else.  The artist, being unable to suggest night-time, has substituted clumps of plants, all waving in the breeze that agitates the folds of the canopy above. Delicate designs on the textiles of bedcovers and clothes substitute for the vibrant colours of the painted version.

An album of 75 portraits (Add.Or.4396-4470) depicting principally the courtiers and ministers of the Nizams of Hyderabad ‘Ali Khan (reg.  1762-1803) and Sikandar Jah (reg.  1803-29) was acquired in 1989.  It was assembled originally in Hyderabad in the early 19th century, refurbished about 1900 and presented in 1915 by Nizam Mir Usman ‘Ali Khan to the Viceroy Lord Hardinge.  Inscribed on the fly-leaf is: To His Excellency Lord Hardinge of Penshurst Viceroy of India (with all good wishes) from Mir Usman ‘Ali Khan Nizam of Hyderabad 15th June 1915.

The album is particularly valuable for the large number of portraits and notables of the court of Hyderabad about 1810 in the time of Nizam Sikandar Jah (reg. 1803-29), during whose reign most of the portraits as well as those of earlier rulers seem to have been painted.  These greatly supplement in this respect the collection of Henry Russell, Resident at Hyderabad 1811-20 (Add.Or.1912-47, Falk and Archer 1981, no. 434).  An exception is the portrait of Nizam ‘Ali with his chief minister Aristu Jah in a larger format, which together with three portraits of notables of Nizam ‘Ali’s court in the same format are about 15 to 20 years earlier. 

Nizam ‘Ali Khan, Nizam of Hyderabad (reg.  1762-1803), seated on a terrace with his minister Aristu Jah.  Hyderabad, c.1790.  Inscribed below: Nawab Nizam ‘Ali Khan Bahadur.  Opaque pigments with gold.  217 by 125 mm.  Add.Or.4411. 

The minister is almost certainly ‘Azim al-Umara Aristu Jah (d. 1804).  His portrait is the same as that in the Victoria and Albert Museum identified as Aristu Jah (I.S. 163-1952, see Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, fig. 247, who misidentifies him as the chief minister of Nizam Sikandar Jah).  Despite his reputation as a wily politician, he was responsible for the disaster at Khardla in 1794 that befell the Hyderabadi forces in their encounter with the Marathas and spent two years imprisoned in Pune.

Finally in this brief selection is this delightful equestrian portrait of Lieutenant John Gustavus Russell, acquired in 1992.  Russell is accompanied by sowars of the Kurnool Irregular Horse, and is riding in a flowery landscape in front of a Muslim tomb typical of Kurnool architecture.  Inscribed on the wooden back-plate of the frame is: Blacklock an Arab Horse I had ten years.  Never lost a 1st Spear out Hog hunting when I rode him.- I spent £50 for him as a 3 year old and refused £300 when in his prime.- Dead.  Rosie a terrier my Constant Companion halting or travelling for 14 years, she is Still Alive. John G Russell.  4 April [18]53.  P.S.  The drawing is made by a native.  The horse & dog are right - but the rider not - I did not sit for it.

Lt. John Gustavus Russell with sowars of the Kurnool Irregular Horse.  By a Kurnool artist, c.1850. Water-colour with gold.  24 by 34 cm. Add.Or 4661 

Kurnool, some 120 miles south of Hyderabad, became in the 18th century semi-independent under its own Pathan Nawabs.  It was captured by Haidar ‘Ali of Mysore, and in 1799 was given to the Nizam at the division of Tipu Sultan's territory.  It was ceded by him to the East India Company in 1800, although the Nawabs were left in charge in return for a tribute to Madras.  The last of them was judged guilty of treasonable activity in 1838 and the territory was annexed, although left in the charge of a British Commissioner and Agent until 1858 rather than under the normal Collector and Magistrate of British India.  The arts flourished under the Nawabs and an offshoot of the Hyderabad style of painting can be located there (Zebrowski 1983, pp. 272-3).  In the 19^th century Kurnool produced paintings on leather of both Hindu and decorative subjects, but this painting by Kurnool artist would seem to be a rare instance of a Deccani ‘Company’ painting.  The artist has combined a delicate Deccani approach to landscape with the more naturalistic traditions associated with European portraiture.

John Gustavus Russell (b. 1817) first served in the 29th Madras Native Infantry in 1838 when based at Jalna near Aurangabad in the Nizam’s territory.  By 1846 he was placed in charge of a portion of the Kurnool Irregular Horse, a cavalry regiment formed from the numerous Pathan retainers of the Nawabs of Kurnool after the last one was deposed in 1838.  He remained in Kurnool until 1858, from 1849 as Assistant to the Governor of Madras's Agent at Kurnool, himself acting as Agent from 1856-58.  He was promoted to Captain in 1856. The role of Agent was abolished in 1858, when Kurnool was treated like a regular Madras District for the first time, and Russell from 1859-61 acted as Paymaster to the Malabar and Kanara Force, and then the Nagpur Force; he retired early with the rank of Major on 1 October 1861.

Further reading:

Falk, T., and Archer, M., Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 1981

Losty,J.P., http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2013/04/ikhlas-khan-the-african-prime-minister-of-bijapur.html

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2014/04/an-album-of-maratha-and-deccani-paintings-part-1.html

http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2014/06/an-album-of-maratha-and-deccani-paintings-add21475-part-2.html

Zebrowski, M., Deccani Painting, Sotheby Publications, University of California Press, London and Los Angeles, 1983

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (Emeritus) 

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One of the best loved of the illustrated Persian manuscripts in the British Library is the Khamsah of Nizami Or. 6810. Made in Herat during the reign of Sultan Husayn Bayqara, and with one picture dated 900/1494-95, it contains some of the finest late 15th-century painting. The glorious colour and meticulous drawing of its illustrations strike the viewer immediately, while the depth and complexity of their meaning is endlessly fascinating. In addition the manuscript poses interesting problems of artistic attribution and patronage.

Harun al-Rashid and the barber. Ascribed in notes to Bihzad and to Mirak (BL Or.6810, f. 27v).

Illustrating a parable in Makhzan al-Asrar (‘Treasury of Secrets’), the first of the five books of the Khamsah, ‘Harun al-Rashid and the barber’ takes us inside a hammam (‘bathhouse’). We are well and truly inside since the plain doorway in the right marks the entry to an area of privacy, or relative privacy.  In its main saloon, men, with their gaze politely directed away from each other, are dressing or undressing with proper decorum. To the left is a more private space, its status is expressed in a more stately architecture: this is for the moment reserved for caliphal use. In it Harun al-Rashid is the direct object of attention of two attendants, and appears to have engrossed the activity of two more. This space is the focus of the narrative: the viewer’s eye has been led towards it from right to left, according to the reading direction of the Persian script. The text tells us that when Harun visits the hammam the barber who shaves his head asks for the hand of his daughter in marriage. Harun is incensed by this impertinence, which is, moreover, repeated on his subsequent visits.  Harun puts this problem to his vizier, remarking that it seems unwise to subject oneself to the double threat of an actual razor and a dagger-like word. The vizier speculates that the barber’s presumption might result from his standing over a treasure: the caliph should order him to move his position. Harun acts accordingly; standing on a different spot, the barber no longer feels himself the caliph’s equal; excavation reveals the treasure over which had been beneath his feet. 

Over and above the requirements of the narrative, the depiction of the hammam is the gift that the artist makes to the viewer. There are minutely observed practical details such as the soot deposited on the walls by the lamps in the private room, or the precise position of hands that wring a wet towel in the public space; and there is the symbolic detail that the caliph’s robes and crown are temporarily laid aside, so that in a sense he becomes a vulnerable man on a level with the others. There is careful observation and judgement in the use of colour: the dark buff tiles of the floor are evidently not glazed, so that even when wet they will not be slippery; their colour is beautifully set off by the array of blue towels of varying stripe that blazon the function of the establishment, and that are secured into the main composition by the rod that lifts them to or from the drying line.

Is this picture the work of the great painter Bihzad? The names of both Mirak, the older master, and of Bihzad have been written underneath it at an unknown date, but the majority of scholars would attribute it to Bihzad. Writing in 1605, the Mughal emperor Jahangir, then in possession of the manuscript and priding himself on his connoisseurship, asserted that 16 of its pictures were by Bihzad, five by Mirak, and one by ʿAbd al-Razzaq, though he did not specify which (See earlier post: ‘A Jewel in the Crown’).


The Prophet mounted on the Buraq and escorted by angels passing over the Kaʻbah (BL Or.6810, f. 5v).

One of the pictures to which no notes of attribution have been added is the ‘Miʿraj’ (‘ascent’), the picture of the Prophet Muhammad carried up into the heavens on the back of the Buraq, a mount with a human face—the Buraq’s face suggests the work of Mirak, the other faces less so. The Prophet is seen in a swirl of golden clouds and surrounded by angels, against a night sky. He is above the black-draped Kaʿbah, with the town of Mecca around it treated in fascinating detail, albeit in a rather persianate architecture replete with blue and turquoise tiling. The picture follows the type of one produced some 80 years earlier in the Miscellany for Iskandar Sultan BL Add. 27261 of 1410-11 (see earlier post: ‘The Miscellany of Iskandar Sultan’). The later picture has, however, two brilliant innovations. The Prophet is here looking around him in wonder, and the precinct of the Kaʿbah contains two human figures that are so tiny that the viewer seems to look down on them from an immense height.

Iskandar, in the likeness of Husayn Bayqara, with the seven sages. An inscription in the arch of the window is dated AH 900 (1494/95). (BL Or.6810, f. 214r).

This magnificent manuscript clearly draws upon the talents of artists of the royal workshop, but it does not display the name of Sultan Husayn Bayqara, who ruled Herat from 1469 to 1506, as patron, instead a line on one of the arches of Shirin’s palace (f. 62v) says that it was made for the Amir ʿAli Farsi Barlas, and it seems that he is depicted in the frontispiece. Nevertheless, it is beyond doubt that it is Sultan Husayn Bayqara who appears, in proxy portraiture, in illustrations to the story of Iskandar (Alexander the Great), as an ideal king, surrounded by philosophers (above) or showing respect for a holy man (below).

Iskandar, in the likeness of Husayn Bayqara, visiting the wise man in a cave. Ascribed to Bihzad underneath, but to Qasim ʻAli in the text panel. (BL Or.6810, f. 273r).

Thanks to the generosity of the Barakat Trust this manuscript has been fully digitised and can be viewed in our digitised manuscripts viewer (click here Or.6810). Follow this link for a detailed catalogue description with links to all of the miniatures.

Further Reading

Ebadollah Bahari, Bihzad: Master of Persian Painting, London and New York, 1996.
Basil Gray, Persian Painting, Geneva, 1961.
Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, Los Angeles, 1989.
John Seyller, ‘Inspection and valuation of manuscripts in the Imperial Mughal Library’, Artibus Asiae, LVII, 3/4 (1997), pp. 243-349.
Ivan Stchoukine, Les peintures des manuscrits Tîmûrides, Paris, 1954.

Barbara Brend, Independent scholar

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With Dan Snow’s series on the East India Company beginning on BBC2 on Wednesday 30 April, there may be renewed interest in ‘White Mughals’ like Major General Charles ʻHindooʼ Stuart. A less colourful figure but more important, from the British Library’s point of view, was Richard Johnson whose collection was purchased at a much reduced price by the East India Company in February 1807 for its newly formed Library. The Company paid 500 guineas for 64 albums of paintings (over 1,000 individual items) and 2,500 guineas for an estimated 1000 manuscripts in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, Sanskrit, Bengali, Panjabi, Hindi and Assamese. These formed the backbone of the East India Company (later the India Office) Library. It is doubtful, however, whether at the time the Library appreciated the true value of the collection and as recently as 1921 the orientalist Thomas Arnold (Assistant Librarian at the India Office 1904-9) wrote somewhat disparagingly (see Rupam below):

As a collector he [Johnson] certainly did not show any remarkable power of discrimination…which would appear to indicate that he was not a man of very refined taste or endowed with a nice sense of judgement.

Today, however, the Johnson collection is accepted as one of the most significant in the British Library and in our recent exhibition, ‘Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire’, it contributed a major proportion of the exhibits.

Laylā and Majnūn at school from the story of Laylā u Majnūn in Nizāmī’s Khamsah. Painting ascribed to Mīrak and Bihzād, and to Qāsim ʻAlī in the text panel, c.1494. This manuscript, classed as one of the most precious manuscripts in the imperial Mughal library (see my earlier blog ‘A Jewel in the Crown’), was acquired by Richard Johnson in December 1782. He must, however, have sold it separately from the rest of his collection since the British Museum purchased it from a dealer over 100 years later in 1908 (BL Or.6810, f.106v).

Richard Johnson (1753-1807)
Appointed a writer on the Bengal establishment of the East India Company's service Johnson arrived at Calcutta in 1770. Between 1780 and 1782 he was Assistant to the Resident, Nathaniel Middleton, in Lucknow, and from 1784 to 1785 he was Resident in Hyderabad. Recalled from both postings, his career was to some extent unsuccessful but he nevertheless established influential contacts with both European intellectuals such as William Jones, Elijah Impey and Antoine Polier and Indian poets and artists from whom he purchased and commissioned many works. It was Johnson who commissioned the first printed edition of the Dīvān of Ḥāfiż published by Upjohn’s Calcutta press in 1791 (see Encyclopaedia Iranica: Hafez VI).

Richard Johnson’s bookplate inscribed in English and Persian with his name and Mughal titles: Mumtāz al-Dawlah Mufakhkhar al-Mulk Richārd Jānsan Bahādur Ḥusām Jang, 1194 ʻRichard Johnson chosen of the dynasty, exalted of the kingdom, sharp blade in war, 1780ʼ. Johnson was very proud of his titles which were granted by Shāh ʻĀlam in 1780 together with the rank (mansab) of 6,000 and insignia of a fish and two balls, a kettle-drum and fringed palankeen (BL IO Islamic 1518).

Portrait of Richard Johnson from a copy of Minnat’s Dīvān, painted by an unknown artist c. 1782. Thomas Arnold – he seems to have strongly disapproved of Johnson! – commented unfavourably on this portrait: “The artist has certainly made no attempt to flatter Mr. Richard Johnson, and his appearance does not inspire either admiration or respect.” All the same it is the only portrait we have of him, showing Johnson seated on a terrace in a formal garden, perhaps in Lucknow (BL Or.6633, f. 68r).

Mir Qamar al-Din Minnat
It was while Johnson was in Lucknow that he came across the poet Mīr Qamar al-Dīn Minnat. Minnat was a pupil of the Persian poet Shams al-Dīn Faqīr and was brought up in Delhi by his aunt who was married to the Islamic scholar and reformer Shāh Waliullāh. The deteriorating political situation in Delhi led him to move to Lucknow in 1191 (1777/78) where he met Richard Johnson who introduced him to the Governor-General Warren Hastings. Minnat wrote poetry in Persian and Urdu which included a Dīvān (selected poems) and a Persian version in verse, Qiṣṣah-i Hīr u Ranjhā, of a Panjabi tale, which he composed in 1781 at Johnson's request. He died in Calcutta in 1792 or 1793.

Portrait, presumed to be of the poet Qamar al-Dīn Minnat, by an unknown artist. In Falk and Archer (details below) he has been mistakenly identified as Nizam ʻAlī Khān (BL Or.6633, f. 136r).

The fly leaf to Minnat's translation of Hīr u Ranjhā, inscribed by Johnson: “The tale of Hire Ranja versified by Meer Cummur uldeen at the desire of R.J.” (BL IO Islamic 1318, f. 27r).

The British Library has two copies of Minnat’s Dīvān, both dating from the author’s lifetime. One, IO Islamic 54, unillustrated but containing lavishly illuminated openings, belonged to Johnson himself.

The opening pages of Johnson's personal copy of the Dīvān of Minnat (BL IO Islamic 54, ff.1v-2r)


The other, Or. 6633, containing a slightly different collection of texts, includes odes (qaṣīdas) in praise of Johnson (ff. 67v-68v – click here to see Text of Ode to Johnson), Warren Hastings (ff. 66r-67v) and Sir William Jones (ff. 68v-69v) in addition to 13 portraits, among them Warren Hastings, the Nawab of Awadh Āṣaf al-Dawlah (r. 1775-97), his ministers Ḥasan Riẓā Khān and Amīr al-Dawlah Ḥaydar Beg Khān Bahādur, and the Nizam of Hyderabad Nizam ʻAlī Khān (r. 1762-1803). For full details of the illustrations in this manuscript see Titley, p. 120.

Portrait of Warren Hastings by an unknown artist (BL Or.6633, f. 67r).

This manuscript was left unfinished with pages missing at the end and many gaps intended for subsequent paintings. At one time it belonged to the court of Awadh and it contains the characteristic red seals of Nāṣir al-Dīn Ḥaydar (r. 1827-37) and Amjad ʻAlī Shāh (r. 1842-47). It was purchased by the British Museum in 1905 from the estate of the Indian Civil Service Judge James O’Kinealy.

For those interested in further details of some of the more notable acquisitions in the Johnson collection, see the exhibition catalogue Richard Johnson (below) and pp. 14-29 of Indian Miniatures. The latter also includes transcripts (pp. 26-9) of the correspondence relating to the acquisition of the collection.

Further reading
Toby Falk and Mildred Archer, Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1981.
T.W. Arnold, “The Johnson collection in the India Office Library. 1”, Rupam no 6 (April 1921), pp. 10-14, 2p. plates.
Norah M. Titley, Miniatures from Persian Manuscripts. London: British Museum Publications, 1977.
Richard Johnson, (1753-1807): nabob, collector and scholar: an exhibition of oriental miniatures and manuscripts from the collection of Richard Johnson, as well as rare books, documents, prints and drawings illustrating his career and interests, mounted for the sesquicentenary of the Royal Asiatic Society ... from 1 August 1973. London: India Office Library, India Office Records, 1973. [Asia, Pacific & Africa P/T 5477].
ʻAbd-al-Muqtadir, Catalogue of the Arabic and Persian Manuscripts in the Oriental Public Library at Bankipore, 3. Persian Poetry. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depôt, 1912, pp. 243, 244, 245.
Garcin de Tassy, Histoire de la Littérature Hindoui et Hindoustani, 1. Paris: Oriental Translation Committee of Great Britain and Ireland, 1839, pp. 339-40.

Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies

The Dara Shikoh Album (Add.Or.3129) is one of the most famous and important Mughal artefacts in the British Library’s collections.  Dara Shikoh (1615-58) was the eldest son and favourite of the Emperor Shah Jahan (reg. 1627-58).  He was married in 1633 to his cousin Nadira Banu Begum and in 1641 gave her the album which, it was argued recently (Losty and Roy 2012, pp. 124-37), the prince had assembled between 1631 and 1633 and not as normally assumed between his marriage in 1633 and the gift in 1641.  When I was researching the album, which is famous above all for its flower studies, I recognised a new European source of inspiration that had not previously been noticed.  Scholars of Mughal painting, following Robert Skelton’s seminal paper of 1972, have become increasingly aware of how Mughal artists used European prints to help both in their individual paintings of flowers and in the floral borders of the imperial albums of Jahangir (reg. 1605-27) and Shah Jahan.  Since it was possible to publish only the British Library’s Mughal paintings in our 2012 book, this note expands on some of the references made therein. 

The only signed and dated painting in the album is by the otherwise mysterious artist Muhammad Khan, who was possibly from the Deccan and engaged by Dara Shikoh when the Emperor’s court was in Burhanpur 1630-32.  My attention focussed on the vase which is filled with a bouquet of many different sorts of flowers and is very unlike contemporary Mughal depictions of vases of flowers in paintings.  

A prince in Persian costume pouring wine.  Inscribed on the bowl in Persian: ‘amal-i Muhammad Khan musavvir sanna 1043 (‘work of Muhammad Khan the artist, the year 1043/1633–4’).  Add.Or.3129, f. 21v.

While vases of flowers are occasionally seen in contemporary Mughal party scenes, they are normally slender and filled with a single type of flower arranged in two dimensions.  This extravagant bouquet in Muhammad Khan’s painting seems instead derived from a European exemplar, such as occur in several engraved florilegia of the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries.  In one of them, the Florilegium series of prints made by Adriaen Collaert and published by Philips Galle in Antwerp, first in 1587 and again in 1590, the third plate is an elaborate bouquet of various flowers arranged in a vase much as in Muhammad Khan’s version. 

 
Adriaen Collaert, Florilegium, published by Philips Galle, Antwerp, 1590.  555.d.23.(3.), pl. 3

So far as I am aware this Florilegium has not been identified before as a source for Mughal flowers studies, yet it can be shown as we shall see in a moment to have been a comparatively early arrival at the Mughal court.  Muhammad Khan has modified the decoration on his vase:  the image of a lion bringing down a large deer, perhaps a nilgai, is obviously of Indian inspiration despite its blue and white colouring, but the shape is not Chinese but derived from the sort of classical vase with wide shoulders and comparatively narrow base seen in Collaert’s engraving, although in the Mughal version without a foot. 

 
Vase of narcissi with covered cups, intarsia detail from the tomb of Itimad al-Daula, Agra, begun 1622. Photo by William Dalrymple, 2013, and reproduced with his kind permission

The aparently haphazard arrangement of flowers in a vase in the European manner would not have been thought suitable for execution in stone in a Mughal monument, so when bulbous vases containing a single variety of flowers make their appearance in Mughal art in the intarsia and painted decoration of the tomb of Itimad al-Daula in Agra begun in 1622, the floral arrangement has been beautifully regularized and flattened rather as in Mughal party scenes.

 
Vase of flowers in marble relief on the dado of the Taj Mahal tomb chamber, begun 1631..  Agra artist, c. 1810-15.  Add.Or.1771.

They appear most famously carved in marble in the dado of the tomb chamber of the Taj Mahal in the 1630s, where the vase again is clearly of European classical inspiration and with its swags and foot is almost certainly derived from Collaert’s vase.  Here, although the flowers are varied as in the exemplar, they form flattened sprays in mirror symmetry aroud the central iris.  Ebba Koch in her book on the Taj Mahal suggests C.J. Vischer’s engraving of a vase of flowers of 1635 as a possible source (Koch 2006, figs. 338 and 339), but Collaert’s vase of 1587-90 is much closer.

The Dara Shikoh album is celebrated for its exquisite and innovative flower paintings which, like the portraits, are arranged in matching pairs.  Some seem almost naturalistic, as if done directly from nature, although certain characteristics such as the hovering butterflies suggest that this is not the case but rather that European herbals served as the ultimate inspiration.

   
Flower studies.  Attributed to Muhammad Khan, 1630-33. Add.Or.3129, f.67v

One of the most beautiful studies of naturalistic flowers in the album is found in another page attributed to Muhammad Khan, where six different species of flowers are laid out as specimens on the page.  Such an arrangement seems to be derived from earlier paintings by Mansur, the foremost of Jahangir’s natural history painters, whose vanished album of the spring flowers of Kashmir painted in 1621 is one of the chief of our losses of Mughal paintings. 

Left: Lilies, signed by Mansur Jahangirshahi, c. 1605-12. From the Gulshan Album, Golestan Palace Library, Tehran, Ms 1663, p. 103. With kind permission of the Golestan Palace Library.  Right: Lilies, from Adriaen Collaert’s Florilegium, Antwerp, 1590, 555.d.23.(3.), pl. 6.       

One of Mansur’s rare surviving flower studies is included in Jahangir’s great album in Tehran now known as the Gulshan Album.  Previous scholarship concurred that Mansur’s flower studies all date from 1620 or thereabouts, but Susan Stronge has pointed out that Mansur must have done this study before he was given the title of Nadir al-‘Asr, Wonder of Time, which he is how he signs himself on paintings that can be dated to 1612 and later (2008, pp. 95-96).  On the other hand, since he uses the soubriquet Jahangirshahi, this suggests that he was already regarded as a master artist.  Stronge proposed that in this study Mansur was influenced by two of the individual plants published in John Gerard’s The Herball or Generall Historie of Plants, 1597, reversing the engravings, but suggesting that the ultimate source was a still undiscovered Florilegium.  The subjects of engraved florilegia were much copied from one publication to another.  Turning again to Collaert’s Florilegium of 1590, it can be seen that she was right.

Mansur’s painting of lilies has always struck me as a somewhat clumsy arrangement of flowers compared with the elegance of the Dara Shikoh page.  However, the arrangement of different kinds of flowers all from the same species, in this instance lilies, is of course derived from European florilegia, which are concerned with botany, not with aesthetics.  It can readily be seen that in this case Mansur reproduces the entirety of plate 6 from Collaert’s Florilegium the right way round and in an exact correspondence.  Clearly he was not familiar with lilies in nature since he has mistaken the trumpet part of the flower for green sepals.  So far from this being a masterpiece of Mansur’s maturity as is often proclaimed, it is in fact an immature study from early in Jahangir’s reign.  Just as Abu’l Hasan and other artists of the period painted over or copied European engravings of Christian religious imagery to help them develop a more naturalistic approach to the rendering of volume and space, so Mansur is using a European print to help him find his way into the naturalistic depiction of flowers.

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (retired)

Bibliography:

Koch, E., The Complete Taj Mahal, London, 2006

Losty, J.P., and Roy, M., Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire – Manuscripts and Paintings in the British Library, London, 2012

Semsar, M.H., and Ernami, K., Golestan Palace Library: a Portfolio of Miniature Paintings and Calligraphy, Tehran, 2000

Skelton, R., ‘A Decorative Motif in Mughal Art’ in Aspects of Indian Art, ed. P. Pal, Leiden, 1972, pp. 147-52

Stronge, S., ‘The Minto Album and its Decoration’ in Wright, Elaine, ed., Muraqqa':  Imperial Mughal Albums from the Chester Beatty Library Dublin, Alexandria VA, 2008, pp. 82-105

One of the manuscripts we have recently digitised is the Dārābnāmah, an illustrated prose romance describing the adventures of the Persian King Darab, son of Bahman, and Alexander the Great, originally composed in the 12th century by Muhammad ibn Hasan Abu Tahir Tarsusi. Our copy unfortunately only contains the first part of the epic, ending with the story of the Macedonian princess Nahid, Darab’s newly-wedded bride and the future mother of Alexander the Great, being returned unwanted (she had bad breath) but pregnant to her father Faylaqus (Philip of Macedon).

Nahid, daughter of Faylaqus (Philip of Macedon), is presented to Darab (Or. 4615, f 129r)

Drawing on Iranian folk literature, this collection of tales reflects a tradition of storytelling which has parallels with Firdawsi’s Shāhnāmah, written at the beginning of the 11th century. At the same time it has developed quite independently, linking pre-Islamic Iranian traditions with those of Islam and the west. The second part of the work, missing from this copy, is devoted to Iskandar/Alexander the Great and forms part of the Alexander romance, well known in both Persian and European literature. The first part of the work, however, has been comparatively understudied, so our digital version will hopefully facilitate some profitable research into this neglected area.

Our copy was probably completed between 1580 and 1585 for the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Classed as ‘Grade Two’ in the Mughal imperial library, it originally contained at least 200 paintings, and presumably there was also a second volume. By 1828, probably looted or sold, it belonged to the Nawabs of Awadh whose seals are stamped on the final leaf. When the British Museum purchased it from Quaritch in 1893, there were only 157 paintings and many leaves, including the colophon, were missing.

Tamrusiyah, temporarily separated from Darab,  and her brother Mihrasb under the Waqwaq Tree (a mythical tree which grew human heads as fruit). Artist: Mukhlis  (Or.4615, f 44r)

The paintings, created at a time when Mughal art was subject to Iranian, Indian and European influences, are what really distinguish this manuscript. Nearly all of them are ascribed altogether to  43 individual artists, several of whom were singled out by Abu’-Fazl in his chapter on the art of painting in the Āʼīn-i Akbarī. They include some of the most famous artists of Akbar’s reign. Details of their work and four separate paintings are described in the catalogue to the British Library’s recent exhibition ‘Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire (Losty and Roy, 2012).

The plot of the Dārābnāmah is extremely complicated. The basic story tells of a prince, abandoned at birth and his subsequent adventures before he returns to Iran and claims the throne. His travels take him to kingdoms ruled by apes, one-eyed people, and others where he encounters all kinds of magical creatures including watermaidens, human-headed serpents and dragons.  In his article in Encyclopædia Iranica, William Hannaway gives a resumé, but unless some reader rises to the challenge, we’ll have to wait for a full translation! Particulars of the manuscript and a list of all the miniatures with links to the images can be seen here and on our Digital Persian Project page.

Here are a few more paintings to illustrate the story:


Near the beginning of the book, Bahman, son of the hero Isfandiyar, and his horse are swallowed by a dragon, and Humay (who is actually his daughter, but is pregnant with his child) becomes queen  (Or.4615, f 3v)

Abandoned at birth and rescued from the river by a washerman, Darab eventually meets his mother, Humay. Artist: Mithra (Or.4615, f 7v)



Humay playing polo with her slaves. Artist: Sanvalah (Or.4615, f 11v)

Darab continues on his travels. Here he is shown fighting the dīv, Samandun (Or.4615, f 17v)

Darab meets and falls in love with the widowed queen Tamrusiyah who later becomes the mother of his son Darab/Dara. Together they continue travelling. In this scene Darab draws the mighty bow of Isfandiyar before Sangarun. The severed head of the son of the ruler of the Island of Katrun, beheaded because he failed to draw the bow, is fixed to the wall above. Artist: Bhagvan (Or.4615, f 25v)

Darab goes to the rescue of his mother Queen Humay who has been captured by the Caesar of Rum (ie. the king of Macedonia). Here they hurl rocks at the king's army. Artist: Ibrahim Qahhar (Or.4615, f 102r)

Humay watched by Darab as she dictates letters announcing Darab’s accession. Artist: Dharmdas (Or.4615, f 114r)

Further reading

Charles Rieu, Supplement to the Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1895), no 385.
Norah M Titley, Miniatures from Persian Manuscripts: a Catalogue and Subject Index of Paintings from Persia, India and Turkey in the British Library and the British Museum (London, 1977), pp 8-11.
William L. Hanaway, “DĀRĀB-NĀMA”, in Encyclopædia Iranica.
J P Losty and Malini Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire (London, 2012), pp 32-7.
Zabīḥ Allāh Ṣafā (ed), Dārābʹnāmah-i Ṭarsūsī: rivāyat-i Abū Ṭāhir Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan Ibn ʻAlī ibn Mūsā al-Ṭarsūsī, 2 vols (Tihrān, 1965).
Marina Gaillard, Alexandre le Grand en Iran = le Dârâb Nâmeh (Paris, 2005).

Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies

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The collection of Indian paintings in the former India Office Library’s Prints and Drawings section (now British Library Visual Arts) is famous above all for its individual imperial Mughal and later Mughal paintings, forming a complement to the collection of illustrated Mughal manuscripts that came to the British Library from the British Museum’s collections.  Not so well known are the individual items from other schools of Indian painting, particularly the Rajasthani and Pahari paintings.  The collection of Pahari paintings was very small when described by Toby Falk and Mildred Archer for their seminal 1981 catalogue, and it still is, but this post will pick out the highlights of what was in the collection in 1981 and the paintings acquired subsequently.

We begin with four paintings acquired since the publication of the 1981 catalogue showing the Pahari style in its early form little influenced by Mughal painting.

Mangala, the planet Mars, holding mace and water-pot and unusually riding a tiger.  By a Mankot artist, c.1700-20.  83 by 131 mm; page 107 by 155 mm.  Add.Or.4318, acquired 1986.

Mangala wears a lotus-topped crown, a sprigged dhoti, and a muslin dupatta with flowered ends, and rides facing left on a snarling orange and white tiger.  The ground is a dark red, with a narrow band of cloud-streaked sky at the top and another of green at the bottom; the latter is lightly applied over the dark red ground, and is relieved by clumps of white daisies.  Inscribed above in white takri characters is the name Magala and on the verso is a verse detailing the consequences good or evil of seeing the planet, indicating the painting comes from a dream manual.  The iconography is unusual, since Mangala normally rides a goat. The composition is typical of early Pahari painting with the subject silhouetted against a coloured ground with flowers below and a sky above, but without any indication of space or spatial recession.  Although acquired as from Chamba, subsequent research by Goswamy and Fischer (1992, pp. 95-125) suggests Mankot as a more likely school and possibly from the hand of the artist they designate the ‘Master at the Court of Mankot’.   Our Mangala can be compared with that master’s image of Rama being worshipped by Hanuman in the Rietberg Museum (ibid., no. 52), while the tiger with its fearsome claws is close to that master’s tiger in Vasudeva crossing the Jumna with the infant Krishna in a painting now in Chandigarh (ibid., no. 43).

Rama and Laksmana are pinned by serpentine arrows.  By a Pahari artist from Bahu or Kulu, from the Shangri Ramayana, Style III, circa 1700-10.  186 by 290 mm; page 215 x 316 mm. Add.Or.5696, acquired 2010.

The Shangri Ramayana series is one of the most hotly disputed topics in Pahari painting.  A large part of this loose-leaf series is in the National Museum, New Delhi, but many paintings are also dispersed.  When it was first analysed by W.G. Archer (1973, pp. 325-29), he thought it was prepared at Kulu and discerned four separate styles between 1690 and 1710.  B.N. Goswamy and E. Fischer (1992, pp. 76-91) moved the first two styles to Bahu, an offshoot of Jammu, but this unfortunately left the last two styles in an artistic limbo, since they have absolutely nothing in common with either Bahu or Jammu paintings, and much further research is needed to resolve this.  Wherever it comes from, style III with its wonderfully human monkeys is one of the most exuberant and charming of all the Pahari styles.

Our page is from Book 6, the Yuddhakanda or Lankakanda (Book of Battles or Lanka), of the Ramayana, canto 49.  Ravana's terrifying magician son Indrajit, who has the power to make himself invisible, has successfully ensnared Rama and Laksmana in serpentine coils so that they cannot move and lie on the ground unconscious, their eyes rolled up. On the left stands the monkey king Sugriva who is seeking advice from his nephew Angada and the king of the bears Jambavan as to what to do.  All the other monkeys, including the blue crowned monkey general Nila, are terrified when they see Vibhisana, Ravana's brother, advancing on them with his club.  Vibhisana had previously abandoned his doomed brother and had come over to Rama's side, but the monkeys mistake him for the invisible Indrajit and run away in terror.

This particular artist has a peculiar trick of perspective.  The monkeys are not climbing up over each other in order to escape but are actually in a receding line:  other paintings by this artist show him resolving perspective issues of one person or monkey behind another in the same individual way.  The artist is trying to adjust his inherited style to include depth but he lacks awareness of how to do it.

This archaic style continued in use in several Pahari court styles until late in the 18^th century, even after other styles were becoming increasingly influenced by Mughal painting from the court of Muhammad Shah (reg. 1719-48).

Raja Shamsher Sen of Mandi (reg. 1727-81) enjoying a smoke.  By a Mandi artist, 1760-70.  180 by 207 mm.  Add.Or.5600, acquired 2006.  From the collection of W.G. and Mildred Archer (1967, no. 30).

Raja Shamsher Sen of Mandi is kneeling on a terrace and much enjoying the fragrant smoke from a hookah.  The artist shows the tobacco smoke rising from the hookah’s burning pan before some is drawn down and through the rosewater in the body of the hookah and then emerging from the raja’s mouth.  He is accompanied by a young attendant waving a white cloth (one of the insignia of royalty) and by another tending the hookah, both wearing the long dreadlocks fashionable at the time among young men.  Portraits of rulers sitting on terraces had by this time become standard throughout the various schools of Indian painting, but in Mandi no concession is made to depicting space even though the terrace is now separated from the plain ground beyond.  Shamsher Sen, who inherited the throne from his grandfather, the formidable Sidh Sen at the age of five, was by all accounts a fairly weak and superstitious character and his numerous portraits suggest this.

Raja Ranjit Singh of Suket (reg.1762-1791) with his younger brother Kishan Singh.  By a Kangra artist, c. 1780.  224 by 165 mm.  Add.Or.5601, acquired 2006.   From the collection of W.G. and Mildred Archer (Archer 1973, vol. 1, p. 283, vol. 2, p. 197)

Court artists in Kangra were commissioned to produce a large series of portraits of neighbouring rulers from early in the reign of Sansar Chand (reg. 1775-1823) (Archer 1973, vol. 2, pp. 196-97).  In this portrait, set within a jharoka or window frame, Ranjit Singh reclines against a red bolster and smokes from his hookah.  On the left, his brother Kishan Singh is pictured facing Ranjit Singh.  His figure is much larger in proportion to his brother, no doubt because Kishan Singh was in fact Sansar Chand’s father-in-law.   On the right, an attendant waves a morchhal (peacock-feather fan, another of the insignia of royalty) with his right hand and holds the hilt of a wrapped-up sword in his left.  Although Kangra painting has become synonymous with a naturalistic, elegant and gracious style (see below), this was not the case with its portraiture which even later than this preserved an archaic and hieratic approach.

The marriage ceremony of Vasudeva and Devaki.  Illustration to the Bhagavata Purana.  By a Guler artist at Basohli, possibly Fattu son of Manaku, c. 1760.  227 by 334 mm; page 298 by 403 mm.  Add.Or.1811, acquired 1960 (Falk and Archer 1981, no, 543).

Signs of change first became apparent in Pahari painting in 1730, with the Guler artist Manaku’s Gita Govinda (Lahore and Chandigarh Museums, and dispersed).  He and his brother Nainsukh were both exposed to contemporary Mughal painting and in their different ways in the period 1730-60 introduced stylistic change into the painting of the hills, softening the jagged outlines, moderating the fierce colours, and giving solidity to their figures and depth to their compositions.  The two brothers had six sons between them.  All of them followed the family profession and introduced the new style to the various court studios of the hills. 

A page from what is now called the large Guler-Basohli Bhagavata Purana was acquired in 1960, when 200 or so individual paintings from the set from the collection of Mrs F.C. Smith were dispersed at auction.  This dispersed series of the Bhagavata Purana is one of the most important achievements of Pahari artists and the most influential in determining the development of Pahari painting at Guler and Kangra in the illustration of poetical Vaishnava texts.  It is also among the most controversial, although most authorities agree that Manaku’s son Fattu had a hand in it.

Pahari artists introduced depth into their compositions by raising the viewpoint, so that figures could be depicted one behind the other in some kind of believable spatial setting.  That this did not come naturally to them is suggested by the somewhat awkward wall zigzagging across the picture plane, a feature of quite a few paintings from this series.  Within the high walls of the palace at Mathura and under the night sky, Vasudeva and Devaki, the future parents of Krishna, are married.  They wear the traditional marriage costumes, while the priests facing them add ghee to the sacred fire and chant the Vedic mantras.  They sit side by side beneath a canopy decorated with parakeets. Household ladies and other priests are gathered on either side, while women at the palace windows above look down on the scene or chatter among themselves.

Radha makes love to Krishna in a grove.  An illustration to the Rasikapriya of Keshav Das.  Kangra, c. 1820.  Attributed to Purkhu and his school.  248 by151 mm; page 272 by 177 mm.  Add.Or.26, acquired 1955 (Falk and Archer 1981, no. 548).

Some of the great masterpieces of the new style were produced for Sansar Chand of Kangra early in his reign, including now dispersed series of the Gita Govinda, Bhagavata Purana and Ramayana.  Sansar Chand at the age of 20 in 1786 set out to make himself the preeminent chief in the hills and was indeed so by 1806, with most of the rajas paying him tribute.  In that year occurred the disastrous Gurkha invasions from Nepal when Kangra was overrun and Sansar Chand was forced to appeal to Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Punjab for assistance.  It was granted and the Gurkhas were expelled by 1809, but at the price of Sansar Chand having from then on to release the other states from paying tribute and indeed having to pay tribute himself to the Lahore court. 

Sansar Chand from then on lived more in retirement, but still commissioning paintings.  The first flush of brilliance in the style had passed and was replaced by a more mannered but still lyrical elegance.   Typical of this period is a very large dispersed series from around 1820 illustrating the Hindi text on poetics, the Rasikapriya, by Keshav Das.  This work classifies the various types of heroines and their lovers and proved irresistible to patrons and artists alike as a way of combining sringara rasa, the erotic sentiment of classical poetic theory, with the bhakti movement of personal devotion to Krishna, since the lover in the pictures was often identified with Krishna himself.  Goswamy and Fischer now attribute the series to the artist Purkhu with assistants (2011).

The painting illustrates the verse 1.20, prachanna-samyoga-sringara (‘hidden love in union’):

‘One day Vrishabhanu’s daughter [Radha] and Murari [Krishna] decided to hide in the forest and engage in reverse love  play.  Fully immersed in each other and groaning with pleasure they were fully enjoying each other.  During the amorous acitivity Radha’ sapphire-studded pendant tied round her neck with a black thread was moving and it seemed as Surya and Saturn were swinging’ (translated Harsha Dehejia, 2013).

In our painting in a blossoming grove by a pool, Radha, wearing a flowing pink gown, makes love to Krishna who dressed in saffron lies beneath her.   Sansar Chand was visited in 1820 by the traveller William Moorcroft whose manuscript journals and letters are in the British Library and quoted extensively by Archer (1973) for his assessment of Sansar Chand and his patronage of artists:  ‘He is fond of drawing, keeps several artists who execute the minute parts with great fidelity but are almost wholly ignorant of perspective.  His collection of drawings is very great … Many subjects from the Mahabharut are given in details, some of which for decency’s sake might have been spared, yet there were few of the latter description’ (MSS Eur D241, f. 67, quoted Archer 1973, vol. 1, pp. 262-63).

Further reading:

Archer, Mildred, Indian Miniatures and Folk Painting from the Collection of Mildred and W.G. Archer, London, 1967

Archer, W.G., Indian Painting from the Punjab Hills, London, 1973

Dehejia, Harsha V., Rasikapriya: Ritikavya of Keshavdas in Ateliers of Love, DK Printworld, New Delhi, 2013

Falk, T., and Archer, M., Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 1981

Goswamy, B.N., and Fischer, E., Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India, Delhi, 1992

Goswamy, B.N., and Fischer, E., ‘Purkhu of Kangra’ in Beach, M.C., Fischer, E., and Goswamy, B.N., Masters of Indian Painting, Artibus Asiae, Zurich, 2011, pp. 719-32

J.P. Losty (Curator of Visual Arts, Emeritus)

Mildred Archer’s catalogue in 1972 of the Company drawings in the then India Office Library established a whole new area of research for scholars of Indian painting.  Her chapter on Delhi artists is especially valuable, since the works of artists she knew mostly only by name such as Khairallah, Ghulam Murtaza Khan, Ghulam ‘Ali Khan and Mazhar ‘Ali Khan have over the succeeding decades been discovered and published.  All of these artists have been influenced to some degree by European techniques and compositions.  Archer also wrote in 1972 (p.171):  ‘A few of the Delhi artists even painted on canvas in oils.  Jivan Ram was extremely versatile and could work in a number of styles and techniques.’  It proved possible during the last twenty years to flesh out Archer’s brief mention of Jivan Ram with the acquisition of some important works for the India Office Library’s Prints and Drawings collection (now British Library Visual Arts) and to expand the known range of his accomplishments.  This blog introduces a new acquisition by Jivan Ram and is a foretaste of a paper on the artist by the present author to appear in the electronic BLJ.

Jivan Ram is in fact well known from literary sources.  There is a long passage in William Sleeman’s Rambles and Recollections (London, 1844, vol. ii, pp.285-7) referring to the artist in 1834:  ‘Rajah Jewun Ram, an excellent portrait-painter, and a very honest and agreeable person, was lately employed to take the Emperor's portrait.’  Although the painting is not now known, a preliminary drawing survives, acquired by the India Office Library in 1971 just after the Archer catalogue had been sent to press.  This is a brush drawing in appearance much like a European portrait.  It appears from the truncation and the background shading to have been intended as the basis of a portrait miniature.

The Mughal Emperor Akbar II (1806-37).  By Jivan Ram, Delhi, c.1834.  Brush drawing with wash and some colour on paper.  20 by 15 cm.  Add.Or.3167.

When an actual oil painting signed by Jivan Ram appeared in 1993, it was swiftly acquired.  This painting is a small three-quarter length portrait in oils on canvas of Captain Robert McMullin (1786-1865), of the East India Company’s Bengal Native Infantry, signed Jewan Ram on the front and dated 1827.  Jivan Ram had obviously seen and been inspired by some of George Chinnery’s portraits.  This was published in a small exhibition catalogue (J.P. Losty, Of Far Off Lands and People:  Paintings from India 1783-1881, Indar Pasricha Fine Art exhibition catalogue, London, 1993).

Two years later in 1995 another small half-length portrait in oils appeared of another army officer, Captain William Garden (1790-1852), again signed and dated 1827 and this time inscribed on the back as having been executed at Delhi.  Here the manner is more akin to that of Robert Home.

Captain William Garden.  By Jivan Ram, Delhi, 1827.  Oil on canvas.  36 by 31 cm.  Signed and dated on front:  Jeewun Ram 1827.  British Library, F882.

Garden was attached to the suite of Lord Combermere (Commander-in-Chief 1825-30), when the British successfully intervened in Bharatpur in 1825-26 to restore the infant Maharaja Balwant Singh to the throne.  Garden was then attached to the suite of Lord Amherst (Governor-General 1823-28) in his tour of the Upper Provinces in 1826-7.  Amherst visited Akbar II in Delhi in 1827 and it must have been then that Jivan Ram painted Garden’s portrait also.

At this period Jivan Ram was based in Delhi and then around 1827 seems to have moved to Meerut where Sleeman says he was based.  His principal clientele was army officers especially after the successful conclusion to the Bharatpur war.  He had no competition from British artists in upper India at this time.  A few years later in the 1830s we find him working for the famous Begum Samru of Sardhana (1745-1836), whose palace was decorated with some twenty of his oil paintings.  In 1893 they were sold;  some were bought for Government House, Allahabad, while others wound up in the Indian Institute, subsequently in the Bodleian Library, in Oxford.  They are all described in Sir Evan Cotton’s The Sardhana Paintings at Government House, Allahabad (Allahabad, 1934), while the Bodleian’s paintings along with the Library’s and others by or attributed to Jivan Ram in public collections in the UK may be seen at http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/search/painted_by/jayun-ram.

In addition to his oil paintings, Jivan Ram was also a painter of miniature portraits on board and ivory.  In another literary reference to Jivan Ram, Emily Eden’s refers to the artist in glowing terms (Up the Country, London, 1866, vol. i, pp.33-4).  She was staying in 1838 at Meerut with her brother George Lord Auckland (Governor-General 1836-42), and her sister Fanny:  ‘I treated myself to such a beautiful miniature of W[illiam] O[sborne, her nephew]. There is a native here, Juan Ram, who draws beautifully sometimes, and sometimes utterly fails, but his picture of William is quite perfect. Nobody can suggest an alteration, and as a work of art it is a very pretty possession. It was so admired that F[anny, her sister] got a sketch of G[eorge] on cardboard, which is also an excellent likeness.’.

So miniature portraits by Jivan Ram on ivory might be expected to surface, but it was not until 2006 that the Library was able to acquire a signed and dated example.  Subsequently another two were acquired:  all three of them are dated 1824 (Add.Or.5605, 5636, 5637).  Another more ambitious miniature signed and dated 1826 appeared at Bonham’s, London, in November 2013 and this has now been acquired by the Library.  This is a standing three-quarter length portrait of Lieutenant Gervase Pennington (1795-1835), dressed in the uniform of the 3rd Bengal Horse Artillery.  

Lieutenant Gervase Pennington, 3rd Bengal Horse Artillery. By Jivan Ram, Meerut or Delhi, 1826.   Gouache on ivory.  16 by 11.5 cm.  Add.Or.5726

This is set in an interior with a view to a landscape outside through arched embrasures.  Pennington adopts a military swagger pose with one hand on his hip, the other on his sword, while his crested helmet is beside him.  Pennington was Adjutant to the 3rd Brigade Bengal Horse Artillery from 1825 to 1832 and along with his regiment was involved in the Siege of Bharatpur in 1825-26, which would have brought him into Jivan Ram’s ambit.

The Library’s paintings and miniatures by Jivan Ram are limited to those of the 1820s, while the Bodleian’s portraits carry the story forward to 1835.  No miniature has yet appeared from his work in the late 1830s corresponding to Emily Eden’s enthusiastic description.  Jivan Ram boldly essayed the techniques and style of European portraits and set himself up as a portrait painter without a patron.  He is not of course among the greatest of Indian artists, even in the nineteenth century.  Yet they are undeniably charming examples of the art of portraiture. Not until more signed and dated work appears will it be possible to provide a definitive account of one of the most interesting Indian artists of the nineteenth century.

J.P. Losty (Curator of Visual Arts, Emeritus) 

The Visual Arts department has recently added to its collection a folio from the dispersed ‘Impey’ Ramayana. The Ramayana manuscript is named for its patron Sir Elijah Impey, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Calcutta in the late 18^th century. Sir Elijah and Lady Mary Impey were well-established patrons of art and often commissioned illustrations to manuscripts or sets of paintings by local artists in Bengal. The provenance of this folio, as well as the rest of the series, is authenticated by the seal of Sir Elijah Impey stamped on the verso. Impey's manuscript (or possibly even a portfolio), which consisted of 44 single sided folios with no text pages, was later acquired by Sir Thomas Phillipps Bt (1792-1872). In 1968, the 44 folios were dispersed at auction.

The British Library is currently the only national collection to have in its collection a folio from this dispersed series. The only other folio, showing Rama kills Vali, in a public collection is at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  

Lakshman cuts of the nose of Shurpanakha by a Murshidabad artist, c. 1780. Opaque watercolour on paper. British Library, Add.Or.5725

The Ramayana is one of the great Sanskrit epics narrating the story of Rama, prince of Ayodhya, who lived in exile for 14 years. The story is attributed to the sage Valmiki, a contemporary of Rama.  Accompanied by his wife Sita and brother Lakshman, the Ramayama recounts their adventures and misfortunes including the kidnapping of Sita by the demon Ravana. The epic tale is composed of 24,000 verses that were divided into seven books. The episode depicted here, featuring Lakshman cutting off the nose of Shurpanakha, is reported in the Aranyakanda (‘Book of the Forest’).

Shurpanakha, the sister of Ravana (the 10-headed demon king of Lanka) encountered the handsome Rama at his hermitage. Awestruck by his beauty, she instantly transformed herself from a hideous demon with matted red hair into a vision of beauty. Initally rebuffed by Rama, she approached Lakshman and proclaimed: ‘My beauty renders me a worthy wife for thee; therefore come and we will range the Dandaka Forest and mountains happily together’ (Shastri 1952-59). Lakshman replied in jest: ‘how canst thou wish to become the wife of a slave, such as I? I am wholly dependent on my noble brother. Thou whose complexion resembles the lotus, who art pleasing to look upon and chaste? Lady of large eyes, though art a paragon, do thou become the consort of that matchless hero. Renouncing that ugly, evil and peevish old woman, whose limbs are deformed, he will certainly devote himself to thee! Lady of ravishing complexion and lovely limbs, what sensible man would sacrifice that unrivalled beauty of thine for an ordinary woman?’ (Shastri 1952-59).

Grasping the reality of his prose, Shurapanka unfurled her wrath on Rama’s beautiful wife Sita. Lakshman immediately pulled his sword and cut off the nose and ears of Shurpanakha!

Detail showing Lakshman mutilating Shurpanakha

Shrieking in pain and her face streaming with blood, she fled to her brother Ravana. The 10-headed demon sent his army to retaliate. In the lower half of the page, Rama and Lakshman are featured in combat with the demon army.

Detail showing Rama fighting the demons

This folio from the Impey Ramayana provides art historians the opportunity to further explore the regional style of painting at Murshidabad in Bengal in the 18th century. Impey’s commissions, including a set of ragamala paintings (British Library, Add.Or.4-8 and Add.Or.27-31) and the illustrations to a Razmnama manuscript (British Library, Add.5638-5640), are typically painted in a more refined and imperial style of painting. The artist who depicted Lakshman brutally mutilating the demon appears to have rapidly executed his paintings with the figures modeled with thick outlines and stylised features. There is little attention to the fine details. With further research on the illustrations to the Impey Ramayana and other commissions, it might be possible to ascertain the extent of Sir Elijah’s personal influence on the artistic style of this manuscript and regional artists. Through additional research on the illustrations to this series, it might be possible to create a detailed timeline of the artistic practices in Murshidabad.

Material held in the Visual Arts department can be viewed by appointment in the Print Room. The Print Room located in the Asian & African Studies Reading Room and is open Monday-Friday afternoons. Please email [email protected] for an appointment.

Further reading:

T. Falk and M. Archer, Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, Sotheby Parke Barnet, 1981

J.P. Losty, The Art of the Book in India, British Library, 1982

J.P. Losty, The Ramayana: Love and Valour in India's great epic, British Library, 2008

H.P. Shastri (trans.), The Ramayana of Valmiki, Shanti Shadan, 1952-59

Malini Roy, Visual Arts Curator

@BL_VisualArts