Holy men and musicians

Mughal India, circa 1650

Opaque watercolour heightened with gold, in a buff album page splashed with gold; an Arabic couplet by Hammam ibn Ghalib Abu Firas, known as al-Farazdaq, on the reverse along with an Indian seal impression: 'Haji Muhammad Masih Karbala'i [A.H.] 1212' (1797-8 A.D.)

53.5 by 38 cm., 21 by 15 in. page; 25.2 by 16.4 cm., 10 by 6 ½ in. miniature; 16.1 by 15 cm., 6 3/8 by 5 7/8 in. calligraphy

Two holy men and two musicians are seated by night in a landscape. The two men, one older the other younger, seem self-absorbed, entranced perhaps by the music. The nearer one wears a hat with a bandanna tied round it; the old man lacks any headgear and his appearance is presumably based on a Christian saint. The two young musicians, one playing a stringed instrument, the other beating time and perhaps singing, seem less than absorbed in their music-making.

As Joe Dye has observed, by Shah Jahan's time paintings showing holy men in landscapes were becoming something of a genre, and Shah Jahan's artists idealise them into charming and often highly picturesque characters without attempting much in the way of spiritual depth or holy poverty (Pal, P., et al, Romance of the Taj Mahal, London and Los Angeles, 1989, pp. 100-01). Only Govardhan's work attempts to plumb any spiritual depths or physical engagement between the characters (ibid., nos. 116 and 118, for example). While this painting lacks Govardhan's profundity, it is nevertheless a splendid example of the Shahjahani style, attractively conveying the atmosphere of a night landscape in summer.

On the verso of the album page is a specimen of calligraphy, couplets from the divan of the Umayyad period Arab poet Hammam ibn Ghalib Abu Firas, known as al-Farazdaq, which is signed: mashshaqahu al-'abd almas 'Written by the servant [of God] Almas'. Two other works by Almas are recorded, neither dated: a calligraphic page ascribed to the second half of the sixteenth century in a private collection in Tehran and a copy of the Qur'an dated to the first half of the seventeenth century in the Salar Jung Museum and Library in Hyderabad. See Mehdi Bayani, ahval va asar-e khosh-nevisan, vol. IV, Teheran, 1358 sh., p. 39 and M. Ashraf, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Salar Jung Museum and Library, vol.II, The Glorious Qur'an, its Parts and Fragments, Hyderabad, 1962, p. 34, no. 211.

Provenance

Private collection, London