A COSTUME CARD AND TWENTY-THREE INDIAN COSTUME MICA OVERLAYS AND EIGHT SIMILAR COMPOSITIONS
Possibly Benares (Varanasi), Uttar Pradesh, Northern India, mid to late 19th century

Opaque pigments on mica, comprising a costume card with polychrome pigments on paper, featuring a head and shoulders against a blue sky, set in a striped palatial courtyard with vegetation in the background, together with twenty-three polychrome-painted mica overlays with a variety of female and male figures (seemingly servants and musicians) shown in a mixture of situations including playing instruments, holding a fair-skinned child, dancing, carrying a huqqa pipe and writing on a scroll, and another with a male figure painted on mica, against yellow card portrayed carrying an incense burner, each approx 11cm x 7.5cm; and an additional eight compositions, including a few similar subjects and scenes like a woman holding a fair-skinned baby, and men holding a huqqa, a fly whisk or writing on a scroll, each approx 14.5cm x 10.3cm.