Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs and Carpets
Arts of the Islamic World & India including Fine Rugs and Carpets
A cockerel, India, Mughal, 17th/18th century
Auction Closed
October 26, 12:30 PM GMT
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
ink on paper, later inscription in upper right in nasta'liq script, rules in black and gold, mounted with later floral borders
painting: 18 by 11.1cm.
leaf: 35.6 by 20.5cm.
Sold in these rooms, The Sven Gahlin Collection, 6 October 2015, lot 23.
Ex-collection Sven Gahlin (1934-2107), London.
Christie's South Kensington, 8 April 2011, lot 376.
Ex-collection J.D. (Dick) van Oenen.
This drawing of a rather proud cockerel, possibly a fighting cock, is difficult to pinpoint in terms of date and origin. The inscription in the upper right, which has been previously read as 'amal-i Mirak' is probably a later addition. While the style of drawing is loosely akin to Mughal work of the seventeenth century and is very similar to a fully-coloured miniature of a cockerel in the Cleveland Museum of Art attributed to circa 1620 (see Leach 1985, no.23, p.84), it is likely to date from somewhat later. A later version of the Cleveland work is in the British Museum, see Das 2012, V.18, p.96. A comparison can also be made to a drawing of a Turkey cock in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, attributed to sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Golconda (see Makariou 2012, no.286, p.464).