Johnson 17,3

A visit to a shrine.

By Muhammad Faqirullah Khan, Mughal, c.1740.

Richard Johnson Collection. Purchased 1807.

Inscribed beneath in Persian on a piece of paper which presumably originates from the picture’s previous border: ‘‘amal-i muhammad faqir allah khan’ (the work of Muhammad Faqirullah Khan).

Gouache with gold; on an album page made up of grey paper.

248 by 173 mm; page 398 by 281 mm.

Reproduced: Smith (1911 ), pl.CXXVII; Smith (1930), pl.164; Welch (1963), no.85; Losty and Leach (1998), pl. 18..

A Hindu lady is visiting a Shaivite shrine where a lingam is placed beneath an arched colonnade topped by a dome. She is dressed in pale pink and red with her hair tied in a double bun. A yogini sits in a doorway on the left.

NOTE. Muhammad Faqirullah Khan was one of Muhammad Shah’s court artists who in later years found employment at a sub-court level. After 1750 he worked with Fath Chand on a ‘ragamala’ series from which one picture is in the collection (Add.Or.485). For other works by him, ‘see’ Binney (1973), nos.76 and 84; Sotheby, 26 March 1973, lot 38, and 11 July 1973, lots 15 and 16.