A prince enthroned in the countryside.

A prince enthroned in the countryside. Ahmadnagar, c.1595-1600. Circumstances of acquisition unrecorded. Inscribed in Persian: 'Muhammad Qutb(?) Shah.'. Drawing with gold; on an album page with undecorated border. 206 by 130 mm; page 240 by 162 mm. Reverse: a drawing of a simurgh. A youthful prince is seated on a hexagonal throne with an architectural superstructure and canopy above. He is handed 'pan' by a boy and is attended by a 'chauri'-bearer and two armed guards, and three musicians play to him while cooks prepare food in the foreground. On the right are three courtiers seated on a carpet. Note: This drawing dates from shortly after the reign of Burhan al-Mulk II of Ahmadnagar (1591-95), who was already an old man when he ascended the throne, and was followed by a succession of short-lived princes of whom this may be one. A well-known picture of Burhan al-Mulk is in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris (Supplement persan 1572, f.26, reproduced in Barrett (1958), pl.5). A feature common to both pictures is the boy beside the throne who adopts the same attitude to offer' pan.' A contemporary drawing by the same artist is in an American private collection (Welch (1963A), fig.8; Welch (1976), no.36). These drawings derive for their basic style from the drawings of Qazwin and the Persian artist Muhammadi of the second half of the sixteenth century (Robinson (1976), nos.141-213).

Exhibited: Deccan, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 14 April 2015 - 26 July 2016

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