A COURTLY LADY ATTENDING HER NIGHT BEAUTY RITUAL
Delhi school, Mughal India, 18th century

Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the vertical composition depicting a night scene set in the female private quarters of the palace, the lady in the centre being massaged and adorned by two female attendants, her torso naked except for a strand of pearls falling in between her bosoms, a red shawl covering her most intimate parts, the attendant on the left massaging her hands with essential oils, the other offering earrings and jewellery from a small rounded tray, the two lit brass candlestick on the corners in the foreground suggesting a night scene and the drinking cup and bottle next to the lady a refined hint at a night to be enjoyed with her lover, the scene set within concentric Persian-style muraqqa borders featuring intricate gold vegetal and floral scrolls on cream and dark blue grounds, followed by later-added multi-coloured rules and cardboard borders, 32cm x 25cm.

The composition and style of this painting exemplify quintessential features of the late Mughal pictorial production of the third and last quarter of the 18th century. Indeed, Lucknow, Faizabad and Delhi paintings of this period seem to share a predilection for night scenes, especially with female subjects often captured in debate, celebrating festivals, banqueting, playing games, praying or getting ready for the night. The nightly hours offered such a visually stimulating chromatic contrast, and the late Mughal painters successfully rendered this antithesis by mixing very bright garments and accessories in the fore and middle ground to sombre, darker architectures and horizons in the background. In terms of pictorial style, a new stronger attention is directed to the rendering of the characters' psychological tension, which although indebted to earlier Mughal paintings appears in later examples to an even higher degree of finesse and depth. As an example, the lady's hand tightly clenching the red shawl indicates her coyness, in juxtaposition with her proud upward torso showing off her full bosoms, highlighted by the jewellery she is wearing. Her manners and position are shy and confident at once, underlying both the awareness of her beauty and yet her uncertainty: which earrings should she wear? Is she beautiful enough for her lover? All these emotions and thoughts are masterfully conveyed in this composition, acting as a faithful witness to the late Mughal pictorial tradition.

A very similar 18^th-century Delhi School painting with a courtly lady and her duenna was successfully sold in these Rooms, 26 October 2018, lot 227. Another strikingly similar composition with a courtly lady being offered a wine cup whilst getting her hands massaged was sold at Christie’s New York, 21 March 2018, lot 336.