TWENTY STRANGE PEOPLE AND A BEWILDERED DOG, DECCAN, AURANGABAD, CIRCA 1700, OR RAJASTHAN, KISHANGARH, CIRCA 1720-40

Opaque watercolour on paper

Spink and Son Ltd, London, 1992

Welch 1994, fig.13

In good condition - Some inscriptions faded away and some wear on the extremities and corners, some repaired tears. Work is laid down on cardboard, as viewed.
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This is an important and curious painting, which Cary Welch attributed to a Deccani master working in Aurangabad before moving to Kishangarh (Welch 1994, p.97). He surmises that Rajput noblemen and officers in the Deccan patronised local artists and gave them the freedom to paint unconventional subjects with humour and caricatural mannerisms. The subject matter of this work is enigmatic and has so far defied clear explanation. Cary Welch describes it thus:

"Twenty Strange People and a Bewildered Dog, another picture attributable to the same artist while in Aurangabad, amplifies our understanding of the Mughal outpost's fervid spirit. Perhaps the artist's most baffling picture, it intrigues us with a clutch of human curiosities. Only one of them... is tranquil - the reclining, apparently blissful Sufi in the lower left corner. According to the inscription, he is dead. Although someone, perhaps the artist, has inscribed the names in Urdu and Devanagari of these slipper beaters, beard tuggers, noosed prisoners guarded by a sidi (Abyssinian), and other zanies, they merely add to the mystery." (Welch 1994, p.97)

The miniature relates closely to another puzzling caricature What Goes on at the Tavern (Soldiers Carousing) which depicts a group of gesticulating men (see Welch 1994, fig.12, p.92, Welch 1997b, p.35) and a drawing of the same scene executed at Kishangarh around 1745 (see Topsfield 2004, no.101, p.242-3). The distinctive pointed turbans seen on the present work possibly link this miniature more directly to Kishangarh in the first half of the 18th century (see also lot 19 in this sale; Haidar 2000, fig.4, p.82 and Topsfield 2004, p.243).