TWO PORTRAITS OF HINDUSTANI PEOPLE: MEER TALUB ALI AND HIS FATHER SAED SOONDHA, AND A MOTHER WITH HER CHILDREN
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION
Possibly Haryana, Northern India, 19th century

Opaque pigments and black ink on wove paper, comprising a double portrait of Meer Talub Ali, Zumeendaar Burwaluh (landowner), together with his father, Saed Soondha, Meer Talub depicted much shorter in comparison and wearing a long bright pink robe with red sash and turban, his father dressed in white with the typical North Indian cotton robe, both barefoot, below the portrait an inscription in English and nasta'liq Urdu identifying the characters, mentioning their respective age (35 and 73) and the height of Meer Talub Ali (3.4 feet = 1m ca.), the recto plain, 27.2cm x 18.5cm; and a portrait in a similar style of a mother with two children in a village context next to a brick-built oven, the recto plain, 20.5cm x 18.8cm.

Meer Talub Ali is also depicted at the age of 36 in one of the Fraser Album pages, helping to date his pictures in a more precise way. For further reference, please see Falk and Archer, India Revealed: Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser, 1815-26, 1989, cat. 106.