AN ILLUSTRATION FROM A KHAMSA BY NIZAMI GANJAVI: SHIRIN MOURNING FARHAD'S DEATH
School of Mir Kalan Khan, Lucknow, Court of Awadh, Northern India, third quarter 18th century

Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the vertical composition capturing the crucial moment of Farhad's death as narrated in the Khosrow o Shirin tragic romance by Nizami Ganjavi; in the centre Farhad, the Bisotun mountain stone carver, lying on the floor, his head bleeding and his mace next to him; Shirin, the Armenian princess, kneeling next to him and mourning his death, a handkerchief in her hand, her attendants behind her in a state of shock; in the foreground a guilty Khosrow with his horse, bringing his hand to his mouth expressing bewilderment in the typical Persian way, and wild animals such as sparrows, hares and ducks, all paused to pay respect to the scene; the background with hilly green landscape inhabited by peacocks, rams and villagers, Western-inspired building and castles on the right hand-side, birds flying up high in the sky; the whole composition framed within concentric decorative bands typical of album pages featuring dense vegetal tendrils, cusped arches, and floral scrollwork, the largest band with golden and polychrome-painted tendrils with stylised lotus flowers and rosettes, the outer border with cusped cartouches possibly a later addition, an undeciphered seal on the reverse, mounted on a white cardboard, unsigned, the illustration 11.5cm x 6.8cm, the folio 37cm x 24cm.

The subject of this illustration is unequivocally Persian, and yet, its rendering is strongly indebted to the Mughal and Northern Indian canons of manuscript painting. The naturalistic rendering of the landscape; the strong pathos and the emotional turmoil expressed in the characters' faces and stance; and lastly, the convergence of different elements deriving from European, Mughal and Deccani pictorial schools embody quintessential qualities usually attributed to Mir Kalan Khan's school and style.

Remembered as one of the most praised painters of 18th-century India, Mir Kalan Khan started his early career at the court of Muhammad Shah in Delhi in the 1730s. Following the invasion and sack of Delhi by Nadir Shah (1739), many artists were compelled to leave the court and find new patrons. Mir Kalan Khan settled at the Awadh court and became its leading court painter, active both in Faizabad and Lucknow, producing an incredible body of eclectic and innovative works (Leach, Linda York, “Mir Kalan Khan and Provincial Mughal Painting of the Later Eighteenth Century” in Paintings from India, The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, edited by Julian Raby, vol. 8. London, 1998, pp. 168 - 169). His paintings are often characterised by unique and well-mastered assimilation of European, Mughal and Deccani elements, usually portrayed in naturalistic and verdant landscapes with a clear awareness of space and volume; distinctive handling of foliage and light effects; Italianate and Flemish-inspired scenes and buildings influenced by European prints; bucolic settings typical of Deccani paintings; mannerist use of colours; northern Indian and Mughal-inspired physiognomies and costumes; and last but not least, a sharp eye and interest for human feelings and reactions to the point of creating whimsical theatrical scenes (Malini Roy, 'Origins of the Late Mughal Painting Tradition in Awadh' in India's Fabled City: The Art of Courtly Lucknow, 2010, pp. 165 - 170).

A strikingly similar composition to ours can be seen in a painting attributed to Mir Kalan Khan, successfully sold at Pundole's Mumbai, 9 April 2015, lot 119. The similarity lies not only in the style of the landscape and the organic scene division in foreground, centre and background, but also in the choice of a Persian literary subject, taken this time from Leyla o Majnun, another famous tragic romance by Nizami Ganjavi.