A DOUBLE-SIDED MURAQQA' FOLIO: THE MUSICIAN NAUBAT KHAN PLAYING A RUDRA VINA

Excellent overall condition. Very minor creasing and light stains due to age on the white robe of the musician. With slight abrasion to green ground on the middle right edge of image. The figure's skin tone and the gold speckled folio borders are a shade deeper in reality. This lot is exhibited in a temporary frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The influential musician Naubat Khan playing a rudra vina, or bin, with its large round orange gourds, wearing an Akbar period white muslin chakdar (four pointed) jama with a small white kulhadar (an early Akbar-style turban) on his head, stands on a slash of green landscape.  A flat verdigris background with a hint of blue sky above.  Around his waist, a loosely tied gold patka (sash) with gold chains and implements.

Naubat Khan, an honorific title bestowed upon the musician Ali Khan Karori by Emperor Jahangir, was the son-in-law of Mughal Emperor Akbar's favorite musician, the famous Tansen.  Both the younger Naubat Khan and Tansen were sufficiently prominent as composers and performers of Indian classical music that they were individually immortalized by artists of the Imperial atelier during the reigns of Akbar and Jahangir, ranking thus on a par with courtiers.  Naubat Khan being particularly recognizable in portraits due to his short, corpulent frame and darkish complexion.  He is visible in an Akbarnameh folio datable to 1589 in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (accession no. IS.2:113-1896) of an event at the court of Akbar commemorating the conquest of Gujarat in 1572 where he is pictured quite similar in appearance to our present portrait.  

A superb and well-known portrait of Naubat Khan painted during Akbar's reign and attributed to the artist Mansur, is held in the British Museum (accession no. 1989.0818.0.1).  Another lively tinted drawing of him is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and yet another from the Edwin Binney 3rd Collection is presently held in the San Diego Museum of Art.  Beyond the above examples, contemporary individual portraits of musicians like Naubat Khan, like the present example, are rare given that musicians and artists did not enjoy the status of important courtiers at the time. 

The nasta'liq script on the applied album folio on the verso reads:

"chand gu'i ze koja'i o koja
az nahan-khaneh-ye tajridam o az deyr fana
to jadal mi-koni amma che-koni chun na-koni
goft haqq dar haqq-e to akthar-e shay' jadala".

Trans:

"How many times will you ask: Where are you? Where are you?  Where?
I am from the closet of separation and from the transitory world.
You dispute, but what will you achieve if you do not?
He said: Truth, you will always be the cause of disagreement".

Refer to Edwin Binney 3rd, The Mughal and Deccani Schools, Portland, 1973, cat. 30, p. 56; and Bonnie C. Wade, Imaging Sound: An Ethnomusicological Study of Music, Art and Culture in Mughal India, Chicago, 1998, pp. 108-118.