DECCAN, BIJAPUR, MID 17TH CENTURY

In 1912, F.R. Martin published three marbled drawings, attributing them to Ottoman Turkey. He suggested that that the technique of marbling originated in Tabriz, at least as early as the 15th century, and was introduced into Turkey in the 16th century. In Lord Bacon's Sylva sylvarum of 1627, he gives a near contemporary account of the marbling technique in Turkey (Mark Zebrowski, Deccani Painting, London, 1983, p.136). Zebrowski has more recently convincingly attributed the whole group to the Deccan. Not only were some of the best known pages of this type either acquired in the Deccan or are still in Deccani collections, but Zebrowkski also draws a comparison between the marbling and the mauve, blue and yellow clouds of many Deccani paintings, often painted in turbulent and swirling patterns (Zebrowski, op.cit., p137). An example of this is in a miniature depicting a deer hunt (Zebrowski, op.cit., no.115, p.147). A further piece of evidence supporting this attribution comes with the fact that a number of Deccani paintings are mounted in similar marbled margins (Zebrowski, op.cit., no.90, p.114). A closely related miniature sold in the Stuart Cary Welch sale at Sotheby's, 6 April 2011, lot 114.