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Lot Essay
The inscription on the architectural element reads, fi ayyam al-dawla al-khaqan al-akram al-a'dal al-a'zam mawla muluk al-'iraq wa'l-a'jam bu'l-ghazi 'abdallah bahadur khan khallada allah mulkahu wa sultanahu wa ifada 'ala al-'alamin birrahu wa ihsanahu fi shuhur sana 968, 'In the years of the reign of the the Khaqan, the Most Noble, the Most Just, the Greatest, Lord of the Kings of Iraq and the Persians, Abu'l-Ghazi 'Abdallah Bahadur Khan, may God perpetuate his kingdom and sultanate and increase his piety and good deeds in the worlds, in the months of the year 968 [1560-61 AD]'.
This miniature illustrates one of the best known stories from the Gulistan of Sa'di, (bab 1 hikayat 27):
A man had attained great excellence in the art of wrestling, who knew three hundred and sixty exquisite tricks and daily exhibited something new. He had a particular affection for the beauty of one of his pupils whom he taught three hundred and fifty-nine tricks, refraining to impart to him only one. At last the youth had attained such power and skill that no one was able to contend with him and he went so far as to say to the sultan: 'I allow superiority to my teacher on account of his age and from gratitude for his instruction but my strength is not less than his and my skill equal.' The king, who was not pleased with this want of good manners, ordered them to wrestle with each other and a spacious locality having been fixed upon, the pillars of state and courtiers of his majesty made their appearance. The youth made an onslaught like a mad elephant with an impulse which might have uprooted a mountain of brass from its place but the master, who knew that he was in strength superior to himself, attacked him with the rare trick he had reserved to himself and which the youth was unable to elude; whereon the master, lifting him up with his hands from the ground, raised him above his head and then threw him down. Shouts were raised by the spectators and the king ordered a robe of honour with other presents to be given to the teacher but reproached and blamed the youth for having attempted to cope with his instructor and succumbed. He replied: 'My lord, he has not vanquished me by his strength but there was a slender part in the art of wrestling which he had withheld from me and had today thereby got the upper hand of me.' The master said: 'I had reserved it for such an occasion because wise men have said: "Do not give so much strength to thy friend that, if he becomes thy foe, he may injure thee." Hast thou not heard what the man said who suffered molestation from one whom he had educated?
'Either fidelity itself does not exist in this world
Or nobody practices it in our time.
No one had learnt archery from me
Without at last making a target of me.'
Lentz and Lowry noted how the Herat school of painters copied groups of figures and sometimes complete compositions to populate their paintings (Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles, 1989, esp.pp.376-379). This is certainly a tradition that was continued by Mahmud. The scene of the wrestling match in front of the ruler, lot 13 in this sale, was also depicted by Mahmud or one of his contemporaries in a Gulistan now in Paris (B.N. MS Supp.Pers.1958 ; Annie Vernay-Nouri, Enluminures en terre d'Islam, Paris, 2011, no.39, p.76). A comparison of the two shows clearly the methodology. The two scenes are at first glance very different: here there are many figures seated whole there, apart from the ruler, they are all standing; here it is set in a palace interior while there it is an exterior scene with the ruler seated in a pavilion. Yet many details are very similar indeed, and the figures of the wrestlers are identical although reversed. It is only the colour of their shorts that differ - they have simply been reversed. The man holding back the crowd wielding a stick at the bottom of our picture is also (also reversed) at the bottom of the Paris painting, although there he is partly obscured by another figure. Other Bukhara versions of the same subject set it in an exterior scene very similar to that in the Paris Gulistan. In the present painting Mahmud is able to show his inventiveness, while giving himself a chance to demonstrate his prowess as an illuminator, by setting it in a far more constrained palace courtyard.
This miniature illustrates one of the best known stories from the Gulistan of Sa'di, (bab 1 hikayat 27):
A man had attained great excellence in the art of wrestling, who knew three hundred and sixty exquisite tricks and daily exhibited something new. He had a particular affection for the beauty of one of his pupils whom he taught three hundred and fifty-nine tricks, refraining to impart to him only one. At last the youth had attained such power and skill that no one was able to contend with him and he went so far as to say to the sultan: 'I allow superiority to my teacher on account of his age and from gratitude for his instruction but my strength is not less than his and my skill equal.' The king, who was not pleased with this want of good manners, ordered them to wrestle with each other and a spacious locality having been fixed upon, the pillars of state and courtiers of his majesty made their appearance. The youth made an onslaught like a mad elephant with an impulse which might have uprooted a mountain of brass from its place but the master, who knew that he was in strength superior to himself, attacked him with the rare trick he had reserved to himself and which the youth was unable to elude; whereon the master, lifting him up with his hands from the ground, raised him above his head and then threw him down. Shouts were raised by the spectators and the king ordered a robe of honour with other presents to be given to the teacher but reproached and blamed the youth for having attempted to cope with his instructor and succumbed. He replied: 'My lord, he has not vanquished me by his strength but there was a slender part in the art of wrestling which he had withheld from me and had today thereby got the upper hand of me.' The master said: 'I had reserved it for such an occasion because wise men have said: "Do not give so much strength to thy friend that, if he becomes thy foe, he may injure thee." Hast thou not heard what the man said who suffered molestation from one whom he had educated?
'Either fidelity itself does not exist in this world
Or nobody practices it in our time.
No one had learnt archery from me
Without at last making a target of me.'
Lentz and Lowry noted how the Herat school of painters copied groups of figures and sometimes complete compositions to populate their paintings (Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles, 1989, esp.pp.376-379). This is certainly a tradition that was continued by Mahmud. The scene of the wrestling match in front of the ruler, lot 13 in this sale, was also depicted by Mahmud or one of his contemporaries in a Gulistan now in Paris (B.N. MS Supp.Pers.1958 ; Annie Vernay-Nouri, Enluminures en terre d'Islam, Paris, 2011, no.39, p.76). A comparison of the two shows clearly the methodology. The two scenes are at first glance very different: here there are many figures seated whole there, apart from the ruler, they are all standing; here it is set in a palace interior while there it is an exterior scene with the ruler seated in a pavilion. Yet many details are very similar indeed, and the figures of the wrestlers are identical although reversed. It is only the colour of their shorts that differ - they have simply been reversed. The man holding back the crowd wielding a stick at the bottom of our picture is also (also reversed) at the bottom of the Paris painting, although there he is partly obscured by another figure. Other Bukhara versions of the same subject set it in an exterior scene very similar to that in the Paris Gulistan. In the present painting Mahmud is able to show his inventiveness, while giving himself a chance to demonstrate his prowess as an illuminator, by setting it in a far more constrained palace courtyard.