Johnson 1,29

A prince with a tambur-player.

Mughal, c.1700.

Richard Johnson Collection. Purchased 1807.

Inscribed beneath in Persian: ‘‘amal-i afzal ‘ali khan’ (the work of Afzal ‘Ali Khan); numbered 15 in Persian inventory note.

Gouache with gold; on an album page with gilt-decorated panels above and below the miniature and a blue gilt-sprinkled margin.

328 by 226 mm; page 418 by 281 mm.

An oval seal on the reverse is erased.

Reproduced: Losty and Leach (1998), pl. 15.

The prince is seated against cushions on a carpeted terrace listening to a tambur played by a girl who kneels before him, while another stands behind waving a ‘morchal’. In the foreground is a garden with pavilions on either side and beyond, a landscape with buildings and travellers.

Note: The prince was previously playing a ‘vina,’ and has been altered to hold a wine-bottle. Other areas of over-painting are evident, in particular the tops of the buildings and the distant landscape which is in the style of the late eighteenth century. The fact that the main figure was holding a ‘vina’ suggests that the miniature may originally have been a ‘ragamala’ illustration.