DECCAN, PROBABLY GOLCONDA, SECOND HALF 17TH CENTURY

Details

A EUROPEAN LADY IN INDIAN DRESS
DECCAN, PROBABLY GOLCONDA, SECOND HALF 17TH CENTURY
Opaque pigments and gold on paper, cream and pink borders, cream leaf, seal impression in lower right corner of Suhrab Khan khanazad Pad Shah Alamgir, verso with a late 17th century portrait of a nobleman
Painting 6 7/8 x 3 7/8 ins. (17.6 x 9.8 cm.); folio 15 ¼ x 10 ¾ ins. (38.6 x 27.4 cm.)

Provenance

Sir Harrison Oulsnam, former Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Health (1898-1972), sold from his estate, Sotheby's, London, 27 March 1973, lot 28
The Khosrovani-Diba Collection, sold Sotheby's, London, 19 October 2016, lot 14

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Lot Essay

The style of this elegant portrait is comparable to a number of paintings produced in Golconda 1660-80, characterized by a bolder and more intense use of color. One such portrait of an African courtier (Zebrowski, 1983, p.164) and a portrait of Sayyid Shah Kallimullah Husayni in the David Collection (inv. no. 68/1979) share the vivid background with distinctive flowers in the foreground as in the present painting.
This attribution is supported by the costume of the present figure. Female figures wearing fringe-like décolletage appear in works attributed to a late seventeenth century artist working in Golconda, Rahim Deccani. These include a drawing in the Chester Beatty Library (Leach, 1995, vol.II, no.9.681, p.952) and a lacquered box in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. 851-1889, Zebrowski, 1983, no.169, pp.202-203).

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