Mystics Around a Campfire, Attributable to Payag, Mughal, India, Circa 1650

gouache heightened with gold on paper laid down on stout paper, depicting 3 mystics around a campfire, margins ruled in gold

In good condition, minor surface wear with associated flaking due to age, otherwise colours strong, as veiwed
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This exquisitely rendered miniature is a work of surpassing beauty, and is arguably the work of the celebrated Mughal artist, Payag.

From fairly unremarkable beginnings in Akbar's reign, Payag developed into one of the foremost artists of the Shah Jahan period. His work can be split into two distinct groups: glittering, highly detailed portraits of his royal patron, including the outstanding painting of Shah Jahan on a Globe in the Chester Beatty collection (see Okada 1992, no.247, p.208); and moody, expressionistic group scenes featuring, in the main, ascetics and courtiers (see Leach, 1995, pl.68, p.441). Clearly this painting falls into the latter category, the category for which Payag is most celebrated. 

It is likely that Payag was influenced by the works of contemporary European masters, like Durer, whose prints and paintings were studied closely by the artists of the royal Mughal atelier. Payag's use of dark landscapes, pregnant with smoke and mist, a ring of faces lit orange by the heat of a camp fire, and highlighted by flashes of light on a glass flask resonate with the work of Renaissance European artists of the period, where experimentation with the effects of light and reflection, velvety chiarascuro and high realism in portraiture was en vogue.

These European elements are distinctive of Payag's work alone, which is further evidence for this being the great master's work. It seems that he was the only artist to further develop the atmospheric character of Jahangiri painting through Shah Jahan's reign; from which we can surmise that it was more to his own taste than to the emperor's. In discussing the later miniatures of Payag's ouevre, Linda York Leach remarks that "these latter miniatures reflect Payag's strong individualistic adaptation of European painting techniques. A seated group of officers demonstrates his mature command of facial plasticity and expression deriving from European portraiture, as well as his ability to handle large numbers of differing human types. A further miniature in the same album shows his skill in interpreting shadowed landscape, based on his observation of European art. Among Mughal artists, Payag's genius in manipulating the effects of light was unique and was frequently employed in his later compositions." (Leach 1992, p.354).

These features are all evident in this miniature; the dark and expressionistic landscape, the play of light around the campfire and the naturalism of the portraits all point to Payag's hand. In addition, a comparison with other ascetic groups by Payag reveals a correspondence between incidental features, for instance the jar, stick and peacock feather fan that lies beside the kneeling mystic to the left in this miniature, replicates that in the miniature of Soldiers Listening to Music in the Chester Beatty collection (Leach 1992, pl.68, p.441).

This painting is not only replete with the European elements that distinguish him from the rest of the Shah Jahani atelier, but it is also redolent with the unquantifiable ambience that is Payag's own.