A DOUBLE SIDED MURAQQA' FOLIO DEPICTING EMPEROR MUHAMMAD SHAH

The Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah (1702-1748) standing against a buff-natural background holding a long ceremonial sword and a golden bejeweled sarpech (turban ornament).  He ascended the throne at age seventeen and appears here to be in his mid-thirties.

This folio is from a Muraqqa' of highly formalized portraits of notable Mughal and Deccani personalities with illustrations and calligraphy by various artists and scribes - likely assembled in Hyderabad sometime in the mid-Eighteenth Century.  Another leaf from the same album with distinctive silk borders is in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Another folio from the same album also from the Claus Virch Collection was sold in these rooms on March 17 2015, Lot 1191.

On the reverse, an album folio with fine black ink nasta'liq script containing a quatrain in Persian:

nadanam cheh goftand aghyar azman
keh azordeh shod khater-e yar az man
nadaman che-shanash kornam 'odhr-khahi
keh besyar ranjiden in yar az man.
mashaqahu al-'abd al-mudhnib muhammad mu'min

Trans:

"I do not know what strangers have said about me
That has displeased my friend,
I do not know how to apologize to him/her
As he/she has been much vexed.
The sinful servant (of God) Muhammad Mu'min wrote it"

Note:  There are a few calligraphers with the name Muhammad Mu'min and at least two in the Sixteenth Century.  They are: Muhammad Mu'min Akbar-Abadi (d. 1680-1) son of 'Abdullah Mushkin Raqam.  He was appointed by Dara Shikoh as a teacher for his son Suleyman Shikoh.  His only recorded work is a calligraphic page dated 1073AH/1662-3 CE (Bayani, vol. 3, p. 842) and Muhammad Mu'min Haravi (d. 1616-17), brother of the famous bookbinder Muhammad Husayn and son of Shah Mahmud Haravi.  He worked for years at the library of 'Abd al-Rahim Khan-e Khanan together with his brother and is said that numerous manuscripts copied by him were in the Khan-e Khanan's library.  He wrote nasta'liq in both small and large size.  His recorded works include Firdausi's Shahnameh copied for the Khan-e Khanan in the Malik Library in Tehran dated 1013 AH/1604-5 CE; a divan of Amir Shahi copied in Herat in 971 AH/1563-4 CE and a risalah copied in Burhanpur, both in private libraries in Tehran (Bayani, vol. 3, pp. 846-7).