Ma'ali Mian Saif al-Mulk inspecting jewels, ascribed in a contemporary English hand to Rai Venkatchellam, Hyderabad, circa 1795

gouache heightened with gold and beetles' wing-cases on paper, laid down on an album page with a thick margin decorated with polychrome scrolling leaves and flowers against a gold-ground, inscribed in English on the reverse: 'Portrait of Syfe ool Moolk / better known by the familiar appellation of Malee Meean / Son of Azim ool Omrah, Prime Minister of His Highness Nizam Ali Khan, Soubahdar of the Deckan. This beautiful and original specimen of Portrait Painting was done from Life by Inkut Chillum [Venkatchellam], a celebrated Artist who was invited to Hyderabad by Nizam Ali Khan from Jypoor, and was appointed Portrait painter to His Highness. This Picture was procured with much Difficulty from the Archives of the Ministers Family, Thomas Sydenham, Envoy of the Ct. of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 1807"

Capt. Thomas Sydenham (1780-1816), the Resident at Hyderabad (1806-10)
Christie's, London, 16 December 1965, lot 287
Sir Howard Hodgkin, C.H., C.B.E., London (b.1932)
Acquired in 1966

Zebrowski 1983, pp.264-5, figs.242-3
Michell-Zebrowski 1999, pp.218-220, fig.160
Dalrymple 2002, pp.333-4

In good overall condition, colours vivid and gold bright, margins with some rubbed patches, a small tear to right centre leaf edge, and crack to upper left edge, water staining to reverse lower right corner, as viewed.
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This painting of Ma'ali Mian sitting in a garden enclosure has the dream-like quality and languid atmosphere so resonant of the best Deccani paintings, and shows that the alluring qualities and technical mastery of earlier generations of artists continued to flourish to the end of the eighteenth century, when the Qutb Shahi and Adil Shahi courts with which this arresting style was associated had long since passed. The painting presents a moment frozen in time in which the sensory experience of the scene is strongly conveyed: Saif al-Mulk is being presented with a tray of jewels to inspect by an attendant, yet he seems more intent on sniffing his flower, while gazing sleepily into the distance (the hawk, apparently in his line of sight, is in fact on a different plane, at the far edge of the carpeted platform); the heat of the early evening is almost palpable, and the rather tired flapping of the cloth fan by the attendant behind does nothing to alleviate the feeling of sleepy heat; even Saif al-Mulk's seated position, with his left leg propped rather informally over the further arm of the throne, conveys a sense of sultry ennui. The surrounding garden and palace buildings are painted with amazing detail, with brightly-coloured birds singing in the trees, water splashing in the foreground and butterflies and oversized dragonflies hovering nearby, their buzzing almost audible. The borders are also brilliantly illuminated, in a somewhat archaic style that may consciously reference illuminated manuscripts and album pages from seventeenth-century Golconda. 

The inscription on the reverse, written by Thomas Sydenham, British Resident at Hyderabad from 1806-1810, states that this painting was executed by the artist Inkut Chillum, which is a corruption of Venkatchellum. This attribution was affirmed by Zebrowski in his 1983 publication, although he finds no stylistic evidence for Sydenham's statement that the artist hailed from Jaipur (Zebrowski 1983, p.264). Venkatchellam was the court artist of Nizam 'Ali Khan and painted several other related works, see Zebrowski 1983, nos. 244-7, pp.266-9. The verso also bears the seal of Aristu Jah, dated 1212 AH/1797-98 AD.

Saif al-Mulk, the only son of Aristu Jah, Azim ul Omrah [d. 1804; prime minister to Nizam 'Ali Khan, Asaf Jah II (1761-1803)], died young in 1795, when the Hyderabadi army was marching to the Battle of Khardla. His daughter married Nizam Sikander Jah, Asaf Jah III (1803-29), the only surviving son of Nizam 'Ali Khan.

William Dalrymple has written of the present miniature: "The Hyderabadi miniatures of the period, especially those by the court artist Venkatchellam, are particularly concerned with the cultivated Arcadia of the pleasure garden, and the fountains and ranked cedar trees of the irrigated garden became the standard background to all Hyderabadi portraits of the time. The famous Venkatchellam image of Aristu Jah's son Ma'ali Mian, for example, shows him sitting in a garden sniffing a flower and admiring a tame hawk as five small fountain jets play amid the roses and dragonflies at his feet, and clouds of rosy parakeets fly to roost in the banana trees and toddy palms that frame the scene." (Dalrymple 2002, pp.333-4).

The provenance of this painting is fascinating in itself. It was acquired in 1807 by Captain Thomas Sydenham, the British Resident (the senior diplomatic representative, somewhere between an ambassador and a governor) at Hyderabad. He wrote an extensive inscription in his elegant hand on the verso (see above for transcription) informing us of the circumstances of his acquisition and giving information on the artist and sitter. Sydenham's tenure in Hyderabad was not especially harmonious or beneficial to relations between the British and the Nizams. He was somewhat overbearing and quarreled with many, including Lieut. Col. Montresor, the commander of the Hyderabad Subsidiary Force. He resigned from his post in 1810.