The Meeting, North India, Provincial Mughal, circa 1770

Opaque watercolour heightened with gold on paper.

A prince and his mistress tryst by a stream beneath an overcast sky. Water gushes around the rocky foreground while monkeys clamber in the dense branches of a tree above as they regard the scene. Temple spires with pennants and the walled gates of the city can be seen in the middle distance on the banks of the meandering stream, while thunder clouds roll in the background.

Minor abrasions to paint surface especially in grays of river and sky with associated areas of retouching visible in catalogue illustration. Minor water staining in vertical line across center of image. Fair overall condition. Colors of original slightly pale then catalogue illustration.
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Compare with a similar painting from Jaipur in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, see Stella Kramrisch, Painted Delights, Philadelphia, 1986, cat. 78, p. 85. Kramrisch comments, "The painting of this romantic encounter is derived from Western art, and the figures of rider and horse are reminiscent of those in a fresco of St. George and the Princess in Verona by the 15th Century Italian painter Pisanello. The town in the distance also has Quattrocento precedents. The horseman's hat, which is a shield, is unusual: it too relates to work by Pisanello." ibid., p. 174.
 
It is well known that Mughal artists were deeply influenced by such Western antecedents which were later transmitted and carried over to regional sub-schools. The dramatic play of light and shade recalls the style of Mir Kalan Khan, an 18th-Century artist, who began his career at the court of the Mughal ruler Muhammad Shah before eventually moving to Faizabad.