Add Or 3848, 4051-4052

Add.Or.3848, 4051-4052

Three portraits from a set of Indian characters and rulers.

Hyderabad, c.1745.

Note: From a series of portraits of Indian characters and rulers which was sold at Sotheby’s in 1951 and was largely divided between the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum (I.S. 111 to 115-1951). A few were in the Archer Collection from which these three were purchased. Most of the pictures have cover-papers of Dutch manufacture, like Add.Or.4056, with the watermark ‘J Honig & Zoonen or JH’ & Z, watermarks current between 1737 and 1787. The paper itself however and the style of the handwriting of the identifications indicate a date before about 1750, a dating confirmed by the inclusion of the Nizam of Hyderabad who died in 1748 (Add.Or.3848). For further evidence for this dating, ‘see’ M. and W.G. Archer (1955), 75-76.

The style of the portraits derives from late Golconda portraiture, and at this time, about sixty years after the fall of Golconda, must be associated with the continuation of the tradition at Hyderabad. For the European clientele for whom the series must have been intended, the subject matter was designed to cover a wide area of the sub-continent, including the rulers of Hyderabad and the Mughals further north. A Tanjore connection is found in the inclusion of native characters dressed in the South Indian style current at Tanjore (e.g. Add.Or.4055-4056), and the presence elsewhere in the series of a picture captioned ‘A Tanjore Brahman’. The production at Tanjore of series of portraits of native characters continued into the early nineteenth century, stemming from the style of this series, but later sets did not include Deccani and Mughal rulers.