Johnson 53,4; Johnson 54,1-29, 31-34 and 44

J.53,4; J.54,1-29, 31-34 and 44

Thirty-five illustrations from the ‘‘Iyar-i Danish.’

Commissioned by Richard Johnson, Lucknow, c.1780-82.

Richard Johnson Collection. Purchased 1807.

In most cases the relevant extract from the Persian text of ‘‘Iyar-i Danish’ is written on the reverse.

Gouache, in many cases only thinly applied; on paper with the borders left plain.

Note: The book of fables ‘‘Iyar-i Danish’ or ‘The Criterion of Knowledge’ is a Persian version of the ‘Kalilah va Dimnah,’ the Arabic version translated by Ibn al-Muqaffa from the original Sanskrit of c.300AD. The ‘‘Iyar-i Danish’ was prepared by Abu’l Fazl ibn Mubarak at the instruction of the emperor Akbar who considered the existing Persian version, the ‘Anvar-i Suhaili’ by Husain Va’iz al-Kashifi, too florid. Abu’l Fazl completed the present version in AH996/AD1588, restoring the two prefaces of the Arabic version and rearranging the fables into fourteen chapters.

Johnson possessed an illustrated manuscript of the ‘‘Iyar-i Danish’ (I.O.R. Pers. Ms 1403, Ethe (1903), no.770). This was clearly made for him by the same Lucknow atelier, some of the pictures being almost identical to those of Album 54, but the illustrations are stuck in, an unusual practice for a Persian manuscript. Slight differences between the text on the reverse of these pictures are due mainly to scribal errors. However, it seems that these thirty-five illustrations were never intended for inclusion in a manuscript because the text of each story starts afresh at the top of each page. The text is also irregularly written and intermittent. The production of ‘‘Iyar-i Danish’ illustrations may well have been at Lucknow and could even have been a common practice; other examples are J.27, 19, and Victoria and Albert Museum D.372-1908. The full series of illustrations in Album 54 includes twelve ‘‘Iyar-i Danish’ illustrations from a Mughal manuscript of c.1600. These have been in some cases repainted by Lucknow artists and were clearly intended by Johnson as part of the present series.

Of the Lucknow artists who worked on the series, seven are named in signatures or contemporary attributions: Ghulam Reza, Muhammad ‘Ashiq (both Muslims and each contributing one picture), Gobind Singh, Mohan Singh and Udwat Singh (who may have been brothers, although only Mohan Singh has designated himself as the son of Govardhan), Sital Das and Ram Sahai. Other hands are discernible but unidentified such as the artist who painted nos. 33 and 35.

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J.54,3.

The archer and the cat.

Numbered 3 in Persian.

160 by 101 mm; page 294 by 172 mm.

An archer killing a cat. From the story of the old lady and her cat, which is tempted to visit the house of a fat cat, but is shot by an archer set by the sultan to shoot stray cats, cf J.54, 31 (Eastwick (1854), introduction, story III, 55; I.O.R. Pers.Ms 1403, f.27r-27v).