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拍品专文
This striking and absorptive painting is one of the few known 16th and 17th century Mughal examples of the Virgin Mary standing in prayer. An almost identical example dated to circa 1595-1600 is in the Chester Beatty Library (In 44.6) and includes the Christ Child above. It originally formed a part of the celebrated Salim Album.
European engravings began to appear at the Mughal court after the arrival of Portuguese missionaries in 1580, to the great interest of Emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) (for more on this, see the introduction on European subjects in Mughal paintings on the previous page).
In 1602, Akbar was presented with a Persian Life of Christ, the Mirat al-Quds (‘Mirror of Holiness’) by the Jesuit Father Jerome Xavier, sparking the production of illustrated copies, one for Akbar himself and one for Salim, later the Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27). Mary and Jesus quickly became popular motifs (J. P. Losty and Malini Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire, London, 2012, p.119). According to Linda York Leach (Mughal and Other Indian Paintings From the Chester Beatty Library, Volume I, London, 1995, p.304), the Biblical figures are freely interpreted because the artist had little awareness of their original meaning, while more recent scholarship has argued for a deliberate transformation of “European and Christian elements into Mughal constructs to represent Persian and Arabic literary themes, ideas of kingship, policy, and religious authority” (Mika Natif, Mughal Occidentalism: Artistic Encounters between Europa and Asia at the Courts of India 1580-1630, Leiden and Boston, 2018).
The Chester Beatty and paintings that are offered here have a very similar palette, with the colours of the latter being more opaque and the European-inspired landscape details more refined, indicating a slightly later date. A curious added detail is the open book with pseudo nasta’liq, recalling a naturalism and attention to detail associated with 15th century Northern European art. There is a similar open book in the Virgin and Child at the San Diego Museum of Art, dated circa 1590 (1990.293), although instead of being repurposed in a new, secular, erotic Mughal mode (Natif, op.cit. pp.1-2), the religious aura of this Mary is emphasized by the book.
The European source of inspiration for the Mughal artists are often difficult to confirm, but one does find a book in the hands of the female figure on the frontispiece of the Polyglot Bible (Andover-Harvard Theological Library, R.B.R. port. 303 1569) that was gifted to Akbar in 1580 and which he appears to have returned in 1595 (Natif, op.cit., pp.51-2).
Mary (Maryam) was highly venerated under the Mughals, on the basis of her importance in the Qur’an, but also due to the court literature that links her to their Timurid and Mughal ancestry. According to one of the Jesuit Fathers, Jahangir himself had an image of Mary hanging on his palace wall (Natif op.cit., pp.62-66). In a painting in the National Museum, New Delhi dated to after 1614 (58.58.31), he is depicted holding a picture of Mary (see Natif, op.cit., fig. 96 for a reproduction).
Mary has been depicted in classical illustrated Islamic manuscripts such as the 14th century Jami al-Tawarikh (‘World History’) of Rashid al-Din or different 16th century versions of the Qisas al-Anbia (‘Stories of the Prophets’) and the Falnama (‘Book of Omens’). The Mughal incorporations of European motifs and techniques can thus be seen in relation to this tradition and as expressions of their cultural cosmopolitanism and universal order (Natif, op.cit., pp.18-21). Tributes to the Virgin Mary contemporary to our painting were sold in these Rooms, 25 April 2024, lot 97; 26 April 2012, lot 304; 5 October 2010, lot 374.
European engravings began to appear at the Mughal court after the arrival of Portuguese missionaries in 1580, to the great interest of Emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) (for more on this, see the introduction on European subjects in Mughal paintings on the previous page).
In 1602, Akbar was presented with a Persian Life of Christ, the Mirat al-Quds (‘Mirror of Holiness’) by the Jesuit Father Jerome Xavier, sparking the production of illustrated copies, one for Akbar himself and one for Salim, later the Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-27). Mary and Jesus quickly became popular motifs (J. P. Losty and Malini Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire, London, 2012, p.119). According to Linda York Leach (Mughal and Other Indian Paintings From the Chester Beatty Library, Volume I, London, 1995, p.304), the Biblical figures are freely interpreted because the artist had little awareness of their original meaning, while more recent scholarship has argued for a deliberate transformation of “European and Christian elements into Mughal constructs to represent Persian and Arabic literary themes, ideas of kingship, policy, and religious authority” (Mika Natif, Mughal Occidentalism: Artistic Encounters between Europa and Asia at the Courts of India 1580-1630, Leiden and Boston, 2018).
The Chester Beatty and paintings that are offered here have a very similar palette, with the colours of the latter being more opaque and the European-inspired landscape details more refined, indicating a slightly later date. A curious added detail is the open book with pseudo nasta’liq, recalling a naturalism and attention to detail associated with 15th century Northern European art. There is a similar open book in the Virgin and Child at the San Diego Museum of Art, dated circa 1590 (1990.293), although instead of being repurposed in a new, secular, erotic Mughal mode (Natif, op.cit. pp.1-2), the religious aura of this Mary is emphasized by the book.
The European source of inspiration for the Mughal artists are often difficult to confirm, but one does find a book in the hands of the female figure on the frontispiece of the Polyglot Bible (Andover-Harvard Theological Library, R.B.R. port. 303 1569) that was gifted to Akbar in 1580 and which he appears to have returned in 1595 (Natif, op.cit., pp.51-2).
Mary (Maryam) was highly venerated under the Mughals, on the basis of her importance in the Qur’an, but also due to the court literature that links her to their Timurid and Mughal ancestry. According to one of the Jesuit Fathers, Jahangir himself had an image of Mary hanging on his palace wall (Natif op.cit., pp.62-66). In a painting in the National Museum, New Delhi dated to after 1614 (58.58.31), he is depicted holding a picture of Mary (see Natif, op.cit., fig. 96 for a reproduction).
Mary has been depicted in classical illustrated Islamic manuscripts such as the 14th century Jami al-Tawarikh (‘World History’) of Rashid al-Din or different 16th century versions of the Qisas al-Anbia (‘Stories of the Prophets’) and the Falnama (‘Book of Omens’). The Mughal incorporations of European motifs and techniques can thus be seen in relation to this tradition and as expressions of their cultural cosmopolitanism and universal order (Natif, op.cit., pp.18-21). Tributes to the Virgin Mary contemporary to our painting were sold in these Rooms, 25 April 2024, lot 97; 26 April 2012, lot 304; 5 October 2010, lot 374.