Persian MS 51 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Decoration

Line Fill: Each line outlined with surrounding cloud bands in gold, with the intervening ground fully gilt.

Border: The inner mount bears a gilt vegetal scrollwork vine.

Ruling: The central composition and surrounding mounts bear marginal ruling in gold outlined in black, white, and yellow

Decoration

Painting: The main subject wears a Chagatai-style headress and gilt bodice trimmed with pearls, and a golden sash that terminates in dragon's heads, with her horse filled with a profusion of animals and an ascetic figure, accompanied by a hound in the foreground, infilled in the same fashion. While the overall composition varies from depictions of parīs astride composite animals, this specific work also seems partly inspired by equestrian portraits of Chand Bībī (1550–1599), a late 16th-century regent of the deccan Sultanates of Bijapur and Ahmadnagar, famous for her defense of the latter. Only here the artist altered those compositions by replacing a hawk that she often holds in her hand with a spear, and adding wings upon her back. A very similar composition appears in the Morgan Library and Museum, in the centre of a folio within the Read Mughal Album (MS M.458.14). See Schmitz catalogue.

Ruling: The central composition and surrounding mounts bear marginal ruling in gold outlined in black, white, and yellow.

Decoration

Painting: The figures in the foreground of this scene appear in another album, rendered by a different artist, formerly owned by Sir Gore Ouseley (1770–1844) in the Bodleian Library (Ms Ouseley Add. 166, f. [42]r). It also stylistically comports with another scene in an album also formerly owned by Sir Elijah Impey held in the Bodleian (MS. Douce Or. a. 3, f. 25r). Another similar satirical painting of a group of mercenaries formerly owned by Stuart Cary Welch sold at Sotheby's, London on 31 May 2011.

Ruling: Marginal ruling surrounds the central composition in gold outlined in black.

Decoration

Micrography: The main calligraphy composition infilled with various Qur'ān verses written in blackghubār script.

Line Fill: Each line outlined with surrounding cloud bands in gold, with the intervening ground fully gilt.

Border: The inner mount bears a gilt vegetal scrollwork vine.

Ruling: The central composition inner mount ruled in gold outlined in thin black.

Decoration

Drawing: Many variations of Nārī Kunjar composite drawings featuring women within elephants survive from throughout the subcontinent. This one recalls a possibly late-17th-century Deccani example held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1985.247), another in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (1988.15.11, see Del Bonta), as well as later Hindu-themed versions that feature Krishna astride a composite elephant filled with Gopis, including one example, possibly completed in Lucknow, preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum (IM.22-1916), another likely completed in Rajasthan in the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature New Delhi (see Ghosh, fig. 5), and two reproduced as the frontispiece and pl. 32 by F. Parkes. Similar compositions also inspired two versions of a painting entitled Parade of the Sons of Shah Jahan on Composite Horses and Elephants by Dutch painter Willem Schellinks (1627–1678), held in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IS.30-1892) and Musée du Guimet, Paris (MA 1090).

Ruling> Central composition and inner mount ruled in gold outlined in thin black, with an added single line of white surrounding the latter.

Decoration

Ruling: The interior mount ruled in gold outlined in single and double lines in thin black, surrounded by a single line in white, probably lead as areas now appear gray.