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[DE-SMB-AKU] I 5063

Link to external image
Shelfmark
  • I 5063
Title
  • [Album with Portraits of Rulers and Calligraphy]
Institution

Content

Title

↳ Title in manuscript
  • f. 1a:
    Genialogie des Empereurs
↳ Established form
  • [Album with Portraits of Rulers and Calligraphy]
Region
Content
  • The album was made for Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier de Bottens (1741–1795) between 1784 and 1787 in Lucknow (Awadh, present-day Uttar Pradesh). Polier travelled back to Europe from Calcutta (Kolkata) in January 1788 after a thirty-year stay in India.
    The margins decorated with floral motifs are typical of the album workshop that worked exclusively for Polier in Lucknow. Most of the calligraphies (f. 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a, 9a, 10a, 13a, 16a, 17a, 20a) are signed by the contemporary calligrapher Muḥammad ʿAlī or can be attributed to him (f. 8a, f. 21a); some are dated 1195/1780-81 and 1196/1781-82. The dedicatory rosette on f. 22b indicates Polier's military rank as a colonel, to which he was only promoted on 15 April 1782.
    Most of the miniatures show portraits of the Mughal rulers and their Timurid ancestors, as listed in the genealogical tree on f. 1a (f. 2b, 3b, 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b, 8b, 9b, 10b, 12b, 13b, 21b), beginning with Tīmūr (1336–1405) and ending with Shāh ʿĀlam II (r. 1760-1806). F. 17b contains a portrait of the Iranian conqueror of India Nādir Shāh (1688–1747), f. 20b a portrait of Aḥmad Shāh Abdālī (1722–1772), the founder of the Durrani Empire (present-day Afghanistan). The portrait of the Mughal crown prince Mīrzā Javān Bakht (1749-1788) on f. 1b was created for Warren Hastings (1732–1818) after an oil portrait dated June 1784 by the British painter of German origin Johan Zoffany (1733–1810).
Completeness
Language
Script
Editions/Literature
  • Eighteenth-Century Indian Muraqqaʿs: Audiences – Artists – Patrons and Collectors (Islamic Manuscripts and Books, vol. 23) / Friederike Weis (ed.). Leiden/Boston: Brill, forthcoming.
    [table 7.2; f. 8a = fig. 11.13; f. 21a = fig. 12.15]
    *
    Weis, Friederike:
    Von zwei Seiten betrachtbar: Indische Alben für Antoine-Louis Polier.
    In: Ordnen – Vergleichen – Erzählen: Materialität, kennerschaftliche Praxis und Wissensorganisation in Klebebänden des 17. und 18. Jahrhundert / Elisabeth Oy-Marra und Annkatrin Kaul-Trivolis (eds.). Merzhausen: ad picturam, 2024, pp. 125–153.
    https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.1408.c20488
    [f. 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3a = figs. 4-6]
    *
    Weis, Friederike:
    Cruel Conquerors and a Solomonic Saint: European Collectors’ Interests in Indian Muraqqaʿs.
    In: Manuscript Albums and Their Cultural Contexts: Collectors, Objects, and Practices (Studies in Manuscripts Cultures, vol. 34) / Janine Droese and Janina Karolewski (eds.). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023, pp. 125–165.
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111321462-004
    [f. 17b = fig. 17]
    *
  • India’s Fabled City: The Art of Courtly Lucknow / Stephen Markel with Tushara Bindu Gude (eds.). München et al.: DelMonico/Prestel, 2010.
    [f. 9b = cat.no. 127; f. 10b = cat.no. 128]
    *
    Roy, Malini:
    The Artist Mihr Chand Son of Ganga Ram (fl. 1759-86): Idiosyncrasies in the Late Mughal Painting Tradition, PhD diss. (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2009).
    https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00033847
    [f. 5b = fig. 143; f. 14b = figs. 3 und 148]
    *
  • Weber, Rolf:
    Porträts und historische Darstellungen in der Miniaturensammlung des Museums für Indische Kunst (Veröffentlichungen des Museums für Indische Kunst Berlin, vol. 6). Berlin: Museum für Indische Kunst, 1982.
    [= pp. 359-456; f. 1a,b; f. 2b-22b = figs. 69-91]
External Link

Description of the object

Record type
Format
Number of volumes
  • 1
Boxing
  • 40.5 x 29 x 1.3 cm
Binding
  • brown leather binding with gilded embossing at the edges and in the centre

Writing material

↳ Material
↳ State of preservation
  • disbound, loose folios, each with one page of calligraphy and one page of painting
Number of folios
  • 22, European pagination
Dimensions
  • 39.8 x 28.2 cm

Script

↳ Style
↳ Ink
Illumination
  • margins with floral decoration
Miniatures
  • 21 miniatures (portraits of rulers), 20 calligraphic compositions, one pedigree, one rosette (shamsa) with dedication

History of the object

Entstehung

Autograph

1784-1787 in Awadh (today's Uttar Pradesh), Lucknow (GND: 4026722-2, GND: 4277882-7, GND: 4111406-1)

  • Calligrapher
↳ Name
↳ Note on the Person
  • signatures of Muḥammad ʿAlī on f. 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a, 8a, 9a, 10a, 13a, 15a, 16a, 17a, 20a, 21a
  • Miniature painter
↳ Name
↳ Note on the Person
  • ascription on f. 14b:
    عمل مهرچند
    ʿamal-i Mihrchand
    work of Mihr-Chand
Colophon
  • dedicatory rosette (shamsa) on f. 22b:
    هوالله
    این مرقع بیست ورق بخط نسختعلیق وغره
    از خشنویسان روزکار بابت سرکار افتخار الملک
    امتیاز الدوله کرنیل پولیر بهادو ارسلان جنک دام اقباله
    Huwa Allāh
    īn muraqqaʿ-i bīst varaq ba-khaṭṭ-i naskh-taʿlīq va naskh wa-ghayruhu
    az khushnavīsān-i rūzigār bābat-i sarkār Iftikhār al-Mulk
    Imtiyāz al-Dawlah Kurnīl Pūlīr Bahādur Arsalān Jang dāma iqbāluhu
  • dedicatory rosette on f. 22b:
    God Himself!
    This album of 20 leaves in Nask-taʿlīq (Nastaʿlīq) and Naskh and other [writing styles] by contemporary calligraphers [was made] for the gentleman, the Pride of the Realm, the Ornament of the Government, Colonel Polier, hero, Lion of the Battle – may his fortune last forever.

Provenance

Provenance
  • 1882
  • London
  • acquired by the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett from the 12th Duke of Hamilton, handed over to the Königliche Museum für Völkerkunde (Royal Museum of Ethnology) in 1891
  • 1844
  • Hamilton Palace, South Lanarkshire, Scotland
  • passed into possession of the Hamilton family through marriage of Alexander Hamilton Douglas (10th Duke of Hamilton) with Susan Euphemia Beckford
  • 1799-1800
  • Lausanne
  • presumably acquired from the guardian of Polier's sons
  • 1784-1787
  • Lucknow, Awadh (today's Uttar Pradesh), India
  • produced between 1784 and 1787 for
Provenance entry
  • Other: pedigree on f. 1a:
    "Genialogie [Généalogie] des Empereurs" in Polier's handwriting, top right
    نسبتنامه شاه عالم
    nisbatnāmah-i Shāh ʿĀlam, mid top
    pedigree of Shāh ʿĀlam [II (r. 1760–1806)]

Access and usage

Institution
Shelfmark
  • I 5063
Additional numbers
  • old classmark: IC 24350
Editor
  • Weis
Status of edit
  • finished
Static URL
https://mymssportal.dl.uni-leipzig.de/receive/DEMUS019014Book_manuscript_00000006
MyCoRe ID
DEMUS019014Book_manuscript_00000006 (XML view)
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Metadata license
CC0 1.0
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