Entertainment in a Harem Garden, signed by Faizullah, Faizabad, Circa 1765

Opaque watercolour and gold on paper, signed on the apex of the central archway "amal-i Faizullah"

Room for Wonder: Indian Painting During the British Period 1760-1880, The American Federation of Arts, New York, 1978

Welch 1978, pp. 82-83, no. 33
Patnaik 1985, pp. 69-71, no. 14, and illustrated on dust jacket

Slight wear and tear on the corners and along the extremities and there are some minor losses. The work is in good condition, as viewed.
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This dizzying panorama of the courtyards and gardens of a large and complex palace is one of the greatest late Mughal paintings. The main scene shows a princess with female attendants and musicians on a terrace watching a dancer skilfully balancing flasks of perfume, but the power and success of the work comes through the mesmerising and idiosyncratic use of perspective and the sheer detail of the vast edifice, the gardens and the river and landscape beyond. The effect is to present the palace architecture piled like a house of cards, with verticals and a variety of diagonals playing tricks of perspective across the lotus-filled pools and walled graden, all leading to the sudden horizontal barrier of the river. There are worlds within worlds, and a close examination reveals a miniature version of a similar scene through the main central archway below the artist's signature: a cruciform fountain leads to a pavilion and a boating lake. The whole picture is a tour de force of compositional mannerisms and technical skill.

If the detail of the palace and gardens is spell-binding, the scene on the river and in the pastures beyond shows a whole new series of vignettes, almost a parallel universe of courtly pastimes and everyday life. Boats ply the river, some filled with people, some empty. A horseman is attacked by a makara-like crocodile, and turns to defend himself with his lance. On the further bank are temples, mosques, pavilions, forts, a plantation of palm trees in regimented ranks, two oxen working an irrigation well, soldiers on horseback and a princely figure on an elephant entering a tiger-filled enclosure ready for the pleasures of the hunt.

Patnaik tells us that the harem garden was best enjoyed after sunset, when the heat of the day had passed and the scent of frangipani, jasmine and narcissi began to permeate the air. He describes the social mores and habits that produced the sort of scene portrayed here:
"Purdah gave a special poetry to Indian architecture. The desire to conceal women from view produced the inner courtyards, the verandahs, the intricate lattice shutters of that private world. It was a domain unto itself, and some harem festivities were of a heart-stopping beauty. On The Night of the Full Moon in the pure white Pritam Niwas courtyard of Jaipur's City Palace there was dancing. All the women wore pink. There was absolute silence, no lights, only the moonlight washing the walls and glinting off their jewelry and gossamer veils." (Patnaik 1985, p.68).

Cary Welch highlights the pictorial techniques employed by Faizullah:
"European "scientific" perspective struck Faiz-ullah...with the force of a custard pie. Befuddled by its principles, but thrilled with their effect, he peppered the composition with vanishing points and created a boundingly staccato view of a Mughal heaven on earth. In spite of its spatial chaos, we can prowl through the palace, across its marble terraces, up flights of stairs to private chambers and kiosks for secret trysts; or amble through infinite formal gardens, courtyards, and bowers. In the center of this packed design, thanks to the artist's carefree handling of space, an archway opens into a seeming tunnel of subterranean delights. 
This large and pleasingly vulgar picture was probably painted for the third Nawab Wazir of Oudh, Shuja-ud-daula (r.1756-1775), at his capital, Faizabad. As the central government of the Mughals weakened, the governors of Oudh, Bengal, and Hyderabad gradually rivalled the central power. While continuing to do lip service to the emperor, they returned to him less and less of the revenues, and whenever possible they lured away his most talented poets, artists, and musicians. Oudh and Bengal, however, were fools' paradises, comparable to lusciously ripened mangoes, about to topple from the tree. Hungry and eager, the British waited, hands outstretched." (Welch 1978, p. 83)

Three other versions of this scene, very similar save for being in portrait format rather than landscape, are known and attributed to Faizullah on the basis of the present work. One, which includes an identical vignette of a horseman attacked by a crocodile, is in the David Collection, Copenhagen (von Folsach 2001, no.82, p.107; Copenhagen 1996, p.228, fig.69; illustrated in Archer 1968, figs.17-18;); the second, which includes an identical figure of a dancer balancing a flask of perfume on her head, is in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (see Leach 1995, no.6.334, p.695; Markel 2011, p.76), and the third, which again includes a vignette of a horseman attacked in the river by a makara-like crocodile, was in the Earnest C. and Jane Warner Watson Collection (see Madison 1971, no.42, pp.36-37). A scene of Bhils on a night Hunt, also by Faizullah is in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, (Leach 1995, no.6.331, p.692), and an illustration to the Gita Govinda by Faizullah was formerly in the Ehrenfeld Collection, sold in our New York rooms, 20 March 2001, lot 21 (see Enbohm 1985, no.33, pp.82-83). A Composite of Scenes from Persian Literature entitled "Lovers and Beloved" attributed to Faizullah is illustrated in Markel 2011, no.23, pp.28, 253.