BIJAPUR, CENTRAL INDIA, EARLY 17TH CENTURY

The calligrapher of the panel mounted on the back of this album page signs Mahmud ibn Ishaq. This may refer to Mahmud ibn Ishaq al-Shahabi who was a much praised pupil of Mir 'Ali and was taken to Bukhara by 'Ubaydallah Khan after the capture of Herat. His recorded works are dated between AH 924/1518-19 AD and AH 993/1585-86 AD (Mehdi Bayani, Ahval-va asar-e khosh-nevisan, vol III., Tehran, 1346, pp.876-880). For a full account of his life see V. Minorsky (tr.), Calligraphers and Painters, Washington, 1959, p. 131.

A painting of Ibrahim 'Adil Shah II riding an elephant under a canopy in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. D.398-1885), signed by the artist 'Ali Riza, depicts a very similar bi-coloured elephant to the elephants near the right and left-hand margins of our painting, (Keelan Overton, 'Ali Riza (The Bodleian Painter), in Masters of Indian Painting, Vol. I, fig. 11, p. 385). Keelan attributes the comparable work to the first quarter of the 17th Century Bijapur. The form of the main elephant in our painting is also very similar to an elephant also ridden by Ibrahim 'Adil Shah II in a work by attributed to the Leningrad Painter, (Mark Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, London, 1983, fig. 71). Zebrowski claims that this specific elephant could well have been Atash Khan the favourite bull elephant of Ibrahim 'Adil Shah II.