Johnson 4,5

A young Mughal prince with a musician.

By Hunhar, Mughal, c.1650-60.

Richard Johnson Collection. Purchased 1807.

Inscribed above in Persian: ‘Hunhar’; Persian inventory note (not numbered); a Persian couplet written in ‘nasta‘liq’ calligraphy above the miniature translates: ‘Heaven said that he made for perpetual beauty/ A conjunction in the watery mansion of the moon and sun’ (the second line is a reference to the sign of Aquarius); numbered in Persian numerals: 35 (top left corner), and 55 (lower left corner); an oval seal with the date AH1119/AD1707-1708 and the name Kifayat ullah Khan has an accompanying inscription of inspection with the regnal year 23: ‘‘arz-i [didah shud] shaikh’ (?) ... ‘avarad’ (?)’ sannah 23.’

There is a second undated square seal with the name Zulfigar Ali Khan(?).

Gouache with gold; on an album leaf with inner pink border with waving foliage in gold and outer plain border.

152 by 96 mm; page 420 by 285 mm.

Reverse: a portrait of a girl.

The prince is standing on the right holding his straight sword before him, dressed in a transparent gilt jama over striped maroon trousers. A boy musician dressed in a white jama over striped trousers is standing on the left facing the prince, playing a stringed instrument. Poppies are growing in the foreground of the green field. There are buildings in the distance, and a dawn sky above.

Note: Not many pictures by Hunhar have been recorded. His grandest works are the portraits he painted for one of Shah Jahan’s later albums (a portrait of Rustam Khan in the Chester Beatty Collection, Arnold (1936), III, pl.71; a portrait of Shah Shuja‘ previously in the Pozzi Collection, auctioned in Paris at Palais Galliéra, 5 December 1970, lot 22). Evidently he continued working until c.1690, the date of his portrait of Khan Jahan Bahadur (J.18, 12).