A LADY AT HER TOILETTE
Provincial Mughal school, possibly Awadh (Oudh), Northern India, late 18th - early 19th century

Opaque pigments heightened with gold on paper, the vertical composition depicting a naked courtly lady at her toilet, standing on top of a low square footstool, wrapped in a diaphanous white shawl decorated with golden drops, her jewellery indicative of her high-rank social status, a lotus-shaped lota in front of her stool, pasted onto a loose wove paper folio with black and red rules, secured on a later white cardboard mount, the recto marked in multiple areas with purple ownership stamps and inventory numbers, the loose folio 22.5cm x 14cm excluding the mount.

For a similar portrait with a more articulated background, please see Christie's London, 20 June 2019, lot 566. Portraits of naked courtly ladies at their toilets were rather frequent at the Mughal court and in Indian schools of paintings heavily influenced by Mughal aesthetics, like in the regions of Awadh and Deccan.