Illustration from a ragamala series

Maru ragini

Signed by Faqirallah

Mughal style at Awadh, 1760-70

Opaque pigments and gold on paper, an empty gold cartouche above, laid down in an ivory album page with gold floral interlace and margin, the latter with green rules

5 3/8 by 2 ¾ in., 13.6 by 7 cm. painting

10 ¾ by 7 in., 27.4 by 17.8 cm. folio
 

Provenance

Spink & Son, London, 1982

Kevin and Rose Kelly, Dublin; sold Adams, Dublin, 21 June 2011, lot 346

With Peter Blohm, 2011-12

Claudio Moscatelli, London, 2012-17
 

Inscriptions

On the painting in nasta’liq: ‘amal-i Faqirallah, and on the border below marva
 

The iconography of Maru ragini often shows a camel with a loving couple mounted on it or beside it (e.g. Ebeling, pl. C. 52), derived from the popular story of Dhola and Maru, but it also can be, as here, simply a loving couple (ibid., fig. 135).  Here a prince is leading his mistress towards a bed in a pavilion on a terrace: her gestures suggest she is as eager as he.  The prince is clad in a semi-transparent jama over salmon paijama, a brocade turban and a brocade coat with a fur tippet.  She wears a pink skirt and orange bodice with a transparent odhani. 

 

 

THE FAQIRALLAH - FATH CHAND RAGAMALA

The painting comes from a collaborative ragamala set comprising thirty-six paintings, painted with another Mughal artist Fath Chand.  The series, which was dispersed at auction in 1960, is distinguished by its album pages with gilt decoration on ivory ground, a blank cartouche above each painting, and the fact that each painting is signed and annotated with the name of the raga. 

 

THE ARTIST

Faqirallah, or to give him his full name Muhammad Faqirallah Khan, is an artist known from the later reign of Muhammad Shah, when he painted in a cool and austere style works.  He subtly altered his style to fit in with the prevailing mores in Awadh.