A portrait of a nobleman, India, Deccan, Bijapur, early 17th century

Sotheby's London, The Stuart Cary Welch Collection, Part One, Arts of the Islamic World, 6 April 2011, lot 125.

S.C. Welch, “Mughal and Deccani Miniature Paintings from a Private Collection”, Ars Orientalis V, 1963, (pp. 221-233), pp.230-231, fig.14.

This small portrait, possibly a fragment of a larger work, is typical of the style associated with the Deccani state of Bijapur in the first few decades of the 17th century. Related examples can be seen in Zebrowski, M., Deccan Painting, London 1983, chapter 4, pp.67-121. The manner in which the turban is tied, with a gold double band, is distinctive to the reign of Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II (r.1579-1627), and the appears on many of the portraits and groups scenes involving the sultan and his courtiers. Indeed, the face of the courtier depicted in the present lot is very similar to one represented in a painting of Procession of Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II,  in the Bikaner Palace Collection (see Zebrowski, M., Deccan Painting, London 1983, no.50, p.75). Specifically, the dark-skinned courtier at the upper left corner of the procession could well be the same man depicted here. The pose of the present courtier, leaning forward slightly in respectful obeisance and looking slight downwards with alert eyes, would tally with the idea of this being a fragment from a larger group scene, perhaps with the sultan seated or reclining, as in the well-known paintings of Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II playing the tambur in the Naprstek Museum Prague, and Siesta (a prince at rest), in the Museum für Islamische Kunst, Berlin (see ibid., pls.X and XIII, pp.90 and 117 respectively).