MUGHAL INDIA, EARLY 18TH CENTURY

This sensitive portrait bears particularly close resemblance to two portraits of Prince Dara Shikoh (d. 1659), one of them painted by Chitarman (Toby Falk and Mildred Archer, Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, London, 1981, p. 401, no. 71; p. 411, no. 106). The painting has been later mounted into borders and margins from a copy of the Farhang-i Jahangiri, the dictionary of the Persian language prepared for Jahangir in 1608, which is recognisable for its blue or red borders illuminated decorated with gold flowers and outer borders illuminated in gold arabesques and animals. This Mughal copy of the Farhang-i Jahangiri was probably split by the dealer Georges Demotte in Paris in the 1920s and remounted around Mughal paintings. Two Mughal paintings mounted within Farhang-i Jahangiri borders and margins were sold in these Rooms, 25 June 2020, lots 81 and 82.