Add Or 4-7, 27, 28, 30, 31

Add.Or.4-7, 27, 28, 30, 31

Eight paintings from a ‘ragamala’ series.

Murshidabad, c.1760.

Purchased June 1954 and January 1955.

Inscribed on borders with identifications in Urdu.

Gouache with gold; on album pages with blue and red borders and gold rules; the edges reinforced with magenta silk.

Page 350 by 260 mm.

On the reverse of each page is the square seal of Sir Elijah Impey engraved in Persian characters: ‘Sir Elijah Impey, first Chief Justice, year 16,’ [AD]’1775’.

Note: These eight illustrations are mounted in a uniform manner and were previously contained in an album in the collection of Sir Elijah Impey, Chief Justice of Bengal from 1774 to 1783. Others from the same series are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, I.S.71-1954 (Whitechapel (1979), no.77). Impey had made a substantial collection of miniatures during his residence in India, but his activities were curtailed when he was recalled in 1783. His collection was subsequently dispersed, but miniatures from it are identifiable from his collector’s seal which was impressed on the reverse of the pictures.

The illustrations are in a pure Murshidabad style, and their arrangement complies with Hanuman’s system with the exception of Add.Or.6, identified in the Urdu inscription as ‘Malkos Ragah’ but from the iconography clearly ‘Vibhasa Ragini,’ which is not included in the arrangement of Hanuman’s system.