TWO STANDING PORTRAITS OF A ROYAL MUGHAL COUPLE
Mughal Northern India, first half 19th century

Opaque pigments, pencil, and black ink heightened with gold on paper, the two standing profile portraits in vertical format depicting on the right a Mughal nobleman, holding his embroidered sash, wearing a fur-lined, embroidered overcoat and a finely folded turban embellished with a jiga (turban ornament) with a black heron feather and five pearls at the top; on the left his female counterpart clad with a diaphanous shawl and skirt, embellished with an embroidered sash and an elegant turban with the same jiga ornament as her male companion, holding a wine cup and a bottle in her hands, possibly a 19th-century study of 17th-century Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal's portraits, framed within illuminated and polychrome-painted floral borders, mounted on white cardboard, glazed and framed, each tinted drawing 17.5cm x 8cm excluding the frame.

Provenance: Property from an important European private collection sold in these Rooms, 3 May 2019, lot 374.