POSSIBLY ALLAHABAD, MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1600-1605

In 1580 the first Jesuit mission to the court of the Akbar (r. 1556-1605) presented the emperor with Christopher Plantin's eight-volume Polyglot Bible. They also presented the emperor with engraved Christian images and paintings of the Virgin Mary and Child (J.P. Losty and Malini Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire, London, 2012, p.78). Fascinated by what he received, Akbar ordered his court artists to create copies of the Jesuit material and these artists quickly mastered the Late Renaissance conventions of modelling and perspective. However, rather than simply being copies of European works, these paintings, of which the present lot is a fine example, may be defined as "Mughal Occidentalism" whereby the Indian court artists appropriated the elements they found useful, and rejected those that did not fit with Mughal aesthetics (Mika Natif, Mughal Occidentalism: Artistic Encounters between Europe and Asia at the Courts of India 1580-1630, Leiden and Boston, 2018, pp.1-2, 7-12). Whilst Akbar certainly showed great interest in the reinterpretation of European works, a significant group of paintings on this theme were produced in the atelier at Allahabad during Jahangir's rebellion against Akbar from 1599 to 1605.

This study of Christ as Salvator Mundi is most likely after the etching 'Specious Forma prae filijs hominum' by Hieronymus Wierex (1553-1619; see British Museum, 1859,0709.2960). Other early 17th century Mughal paintings based on works of Hieronymus Wierex are the Virgin and Child in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (W.699), and the Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia by the artist Nini from the Wantage Album in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IM.139A-1921). A number of Mughal artists are recognised for their interpretations of Christian material but perhaps none more so than Abu'l Hasan (fl. 1600-1360), named 'Nadir al Zaman' by Jahangir and one of the foremost artists in Jahangir's Allahabad atelier. Milo Cleveland Beach notes that the artist had a particular interest in the modelling of drapery and spatial volume ('Aqa Riza and Abu'l Hasan', in Beach, Fischer and Goswamy (eds.), Masters of Indian Painting, 1100-1650, Zurich, 2011, p.222). Both of these features are evidenced in the present lot. The vibrant blue cloak worn by Christ in our painting recalls that in a painting of the Virgin and Child by Abu'l Hasan which is a reinterpretation of an engraving by Durer (Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 1005069.aa). Other related paintings by Abu'l Hasan include his depiction of the Holy Family with St. John the Baptist and angels (British Museum, 2006,0422,0.1) and a painting of an angel holding an orb and book, sold in Christie's New York, 19 June 2019, lot 335.

The inscriptions on the reverse indicate that this painting was in the imperial libraries of both Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, which is interesting considering its overtly Christian subject. The reverse also bears the inventory number of the collection of the Ranas of Mewar, who compiled a large collection of Mughal pictures alongside those from the Mewar and other Rajput courts. The accompanying inscription shows that the painting, like many others, left the Mughal royal library, and was acquired by the Ranas of Mewar late in Aurangzeb's reign. It has been suggested that the Emperor's turning away from the patronage of the arts encouraged embezzlement by retainers from the royal library as happened a century later when a large number of imperial Mughal paintings were removed from Delhi and ended up in the collection of the Nawabs of Awadh (Linda York Leach, Paintings from India - The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, London, 1998, p.139).