A study of a red double–flowered poppy, India, Mughal, Deccan or possibly Kishangarh, 17th century

Acquired by Cary Welch by 1973

On loan at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1973 & 1983

India, Art and Culture 1300-1900, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985

The Sea in a Jug: The Welch Collection of Islamic and Later Indian Art, Colby Museum of Art, Maine, 2020

S.C. Welch, India, Art and Culture 1300-1900, New York, 1985, no.248

M. Fraser, Selected Works from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection of Indian and Islamic Art, London, 2015, cat.27, pp.98-101

This exquisite floral study depicts a double-flowered poppy (Papaver somniferum lacinatum), also known as a feathered poppy or a fringed poppy. It is characterised by a multitude of fine serrated and folded petals tightly clustered in the head. The artist has rendered the flower with breathtaking, almost hyper-naturalistic detail, with delicate and accurate articulation not only of the multitude of individual filaments of the red petals, but also of the hair-like trichomes on the stem. The leafy base of the flower floats above a green ground in which individual blades of grass are visible.

This study reflects the interesting and hybrid nature of flower painting in the 17th century, which blends the precision and detail of Mughal and Deccani miniature painting with influence and iconography from European prints and florilegia. In the Mughal context, there are many flower studies of the second quarter of the 17th century that relate to the present work, such as those in the Dara Shikoh Album and several other studies (Falk and Archer 1981, pp.384, 391, 394-9; Stronge 2010, ppls.99-100, pp.135-6). Other related examples which exhibit a slightly stiffer style include an album in the Bibliothèque National, Paris (see Hurel 2010, no.44, pp.77) and three examples formerly in the Howard Hodgkin collection (see Topsfield 2012, nos.26-28, pp.74-75). Related floral designs also appeared in textiles and architecture, and a very close comparison is found in the Tomb of Itimad al-Daula at Agra (1620s), specifically within the Chamber of Mirza Ghiyas Beg (Itimad al-Daula) and Asmat Begum.

Comparisons can also be made with Deccani examples of the 17th century, such as a Golconda study of a rose of circa 1650 (Pal 1983, D2, p.196); a carnation painted at Bijapur (The Sven Gahlin Collection, Sotheby’s, London, 6 October 2015, lot 45), and a double-flowered poppy (the same species as the present work) by Muhammad Ibrahim Mashhadi of circa 1700 (Christie’s, London, 27 April 2023, lot 81). However, these three Deccani examples are all painted on a gold background, whereas the present work is painted on uncoloured paper, like the majority of Mughal examples.

Close comparisons are also found in the designs of floorspread textiles produced at Burhanpur on the northern marches of the Deccan in the mid to late 17^th century, most of which show the very same species of poppy as depicted on the present work and in a very similar manner (e.g. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, IM.69&A—1930, see Skelton et al 1982, p.89, cat.226; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1982.239b, see Welch 1985, no.179, p.272). These cottons are thought to have been of Mughal inspiration and were probably made predominantly for Mughal patrons, thus reinforcing the possibility of a Mughal origin for the present work.

The verso bears several inscriptions in Devanagari and a faint sketch of two maidens. These are in a style associated with Rajasthan in the 18^th century, indicating that the painting itself was probably in Rajasthan some time after its execution. 

In the catalogue of the 1985 India exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cary Welch attributed this painting to Kishangarh, mentioning the influence of Mughal and Deccani painting of the 17^th century on Kishangarh style, and suggesting that the artist had trained at Burhanpur (Welch 1985, p.370).