BIJAPUR, DECCAN, INDIA, CIRCA 1620

This strong Persian influence in this drawing of two ascetics is typical of the arts of the Islamic courts in the Deccan which shared close economic, political and cultural ties to Safavid Iran. The dramatic rocky landscape finds parallels in 16th century Bijapur painting as found in a painting of a yogini playing a Tambur in the second quarter of the 17th century (Mark Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, London, 1983, pl. XV, p.119). As seen in the present lot the painter of the yogini also clearly took great pleasure in the modelling of creased and folded fabrics. A similar background, with the addition of distant architecture shown alongside tall palms is found in painting of a maiden with a gazelle by the Bijapur artist Ali Jafar (Zebrowski, op.cit., no.88, p.111). This style of background, this time including very similar long-horned buffalo, is also shared with a tinted drawing of a dervish smoking a hookah sold in Sotheby's London, 1 May 2019, lot 105.