AKBAR ENTHRONED WITH COURTIERS UNDER A CANOPY, POSSIBLY A PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN ILLUSTRATION FROM THE 'BRITISH LIBRARY/CHESTER BEATTY' AKBARNAMA OF 1602-03, INDIA, MUGHAL, EARLY 17TH CENTURY |

ink with use of gold and colours on paper, mounted on an album page with borders of calligraphic panels and gold-decorated cream paper, reverse with a calligraphic panel in nasta'liq written vertically both ways, inner borders including panels of nasta'liq calligraphy, outer margins filled with flowering plants in gold 

Ex-collection Joe and Hellen Darion, New York.
Acquired from  Bernard Quaritch, London.

In good condition, the margins are clean with minor restorations, minor stains and minor folds, minor retouching, minor flaking and losses to the paint which though remains bright, traces of cello tape, as viewed.
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This finely executed Mughal drawing of Emperor Akbar receiving courtiers may be an important and previously unknown illustration from the so-called 'British Library/Chester Beatty' Akbarnama, executed around 1602 to 1603 and now divided mostly between the British Library and the Chester Beatty Library, with several single illustrations in other institutions. Stylistically the drawing accords with a number of other illustrations from the manuscript, which included drawings and nim-qalam as well as fully coloured miniatures. The style of the painting is close to that of the artist Hiranand, who is recorded as having worked on the manuscript (see Leach 1995, vol.I, pp.314-5, vol.II, p.1105; Sotheby’s London, 15 July 1970, lot 8; Sotheby’s New York, 25 March 1987, lot 2; Christie's London, 28 June 1973, lot 71, pl.13. The present drawing corresponds closely in size to others from the manuscript: it measures 21.5 by 13.3cm, exactly in the size range of the surviving illustrations. The manuscript is usually dated to 1602-03 based on two small inscriptions giving regnal year dates of Akbar’s reign. One appears on a folio in the British Library and the other on a folio in the Chester Beatty Library. There has been considerable discussion as to how to read these dates, and as well as the generally accepted 1602-03, a reading that gave a date of 1597-98 was proposed by Seyller in 1987. This latter dating was refuted by Leach in 1995 and recent publications have kept to the dating of 1602-03. For a detailed analysis and discussion of the manuscript see Leach 1995, vol.1, pp.232-294, particularly p.240 for the discussion of the dating; see also J. Seyller, 'Scribal Notes on Mughal Manuscript Illustrations', Artibus Asiae, 48, 1987, pp.261-2. 275; for a more recent discussion see Losty and Roy 2012, pp.58-69.

A notable aspect is the fact that Akbar is sitting on a European style chair. Chairs of this type began to appear in Mughal painting in the 1570s, derived from European prints brought to India by the Portuguese, with whom Akbar first had contact in 1573 (see Akbarnama, transl. H. Beveridge, vol.III, p.37). For early examples of this type of chair in Mughal miniatures see M. Rogers, Mughal Miniatures, London, 1993, p.84 (British Museum, inv. 1948.10-9,072); Sotheby’s, 6 April 2011 London (Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Part One), lot 89; https://www.davidmus.dk/en/collections/islamic/dynasties/mughal-india/art/miniature_opklaebet_paa_et_albumblad_ammende_prinsesse (David Collection, 55/2013); M. Brand and G. Lowry, Akbar’s India, New York, 1986, p.101.