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[DE-SMB-ISL] I. 4589

Shelfmark
  • I. 4589
Title
  • [Album of Painting and Calligraphy]
Institution

Content

Title

↳ Established form
  • [Album of Painting and Calligraphy]
Region
Content
  • Album with paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries: Mughal portraits of courtiers, rulers and saints, two harem pictures (f. 1b and 10a), two female bust portraits (f. 18a and 25a), three pictures with Hindu ascetics (f. 6b-7a and fol. d [= fol. 5b? ]) and a painting of the goddess Durga (f. 2a) from the 18th century as well as three Safavid genre portraits (f. 3b; f. 4a, signed by Riz̤ā-i ʿAbbāsī; f. 11b, signed by Ḥabīb Allāh) and a painting of two Sufi sheikhs in a landscape (f. 42a, signed by Hāshim) from the 17th century.
    Calligraphic pieces from the 18th century mainly in Nastaʿlīq and Shikastah (f. 45a with short descriptions of the pictures in the album and the name "Mistar Arjibāld Svīntun [Archibald Swinton] Rustam Jang Bahādur"), two in Thuluth (f. 14b and 26b), one in Nastaʿlīq with erased signature of Prince Dārā Shikūh (1615-59) on f. 42b.
Completeness
Language
Script
Editions/Literature
  • Eighteenth-Century Indian Muraqqaʿs: Audiences – Artists – Patrons and Collectors (Islamic Manuscripts and Books, vol. 23) / Weis, Friederike (ed.). Leiden/Boston: Brill, forthcoming.
    [f. 42a = fig. 13.14; f. 45a = fig. 16.1].
    *
    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, pp. 125-165.
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111321462-004
    [f. 35b = fig. 4]
    *
  • Losty, J.P.:
    Dating the Dara Shukuh Album: The Floral Evidence.
    In: The Mughal Empire from Jahangir to Shah Jahan:  Art, Architecture, Politics, Law and Literature / Ebba Koch with Ali Anooshahr (eds.).
    Marg Publications: Mumbai 2019, pp. 246-287.
    [f. 42b = p. 248, n. 15]
    *
    Gladiß, Almut von:
    Albumblätter: Miniaturen aus den Sammlungen Indo-Islamischer Herrscherhöfe. München: Edition Minerva, 2010.
    *
    Taswir: Islamische Bildwelten und Moderne / Almut Sh. Bruckstein Çoruh und Hendrik Budde (eds.). Berlin: Nicolai 2009.
    [f. 36a = cat.no. XVII/6]
    *
    Schmitz, Barbara:
    Ḥabib-Allāh Sāvaji.
    In: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. XI, Fasc. 4 (2002), pp. 429-430 [in print].
    https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/habib-allah-savaji
    [f. 11b = mistakenly mentioned as I. 4568, f. 11a]
    *
    Harris, Lucian:
    Archibald Swinton: A New Source for Albums of Indian Miniatures in William Beckford's Collection.
    In: The Burlington Magazine 143/1179 (June 2001), pp. 360–366.
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/889039
    [binding = fig. 54; f. 2a = fig. 55]
    *
  • Indische Albumblätter: Miniaturen und Kalligraphien aus der Zeit der Moghul-Kaiser / Regina Hickmann (ed.). Leipzig/Weimar: Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1979.
    *
  • Robinson, Basil W.:
    Persian Drawings from the 14th through the 19th Century. Boston/Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1965.
    [f. 11b = pl. 59]
    *
  • Kühnel, Ernst:
    Arbeiten des Rizâ 'Abbâsi und seiner Schule.
    In: Forschungen und Berichte 1 (1957), pp. 122-131.
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/3880488
    https://doi.org/10.2307/3880488
    [f. 4a = fig. 2]
Remarks
  • This is probably one of the eight albums mentioned in lot 80 of the Christie's auction catalogue of 6 June 1810:
    "A Catalogue of a very valuable collection of Persian, and a few Arabic MSS. selected many years ago, in the East, by Archibald Swinton, Esq. ... which will be sold by auction, etc Von Archibald SWINTON (Captain, H.E.I.C.S.)".
    Google Books: https://www.google.de/books/edition/ACatalogueofaveryvaluablecollectio/BxWzN3Swc_YC?hl=de&gbpv=1&

Description of the object

Record type
Format
Number of volumes
  • 1
Binding
  • red leather binding with gilded embossing; spine with gilded floral ornaments and the inscription 'Tusveerān 2'

Writing material

↳ Material
↳ State of preservation
  • disbound; f. 5, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 43 are missing or incomplete
Number of folios
  • originally 48 [since 1782: 46]; European pagination
Dimensions
  • 36.0 x 26 cm

Script

↳ Style
↳ Ink
Illumination
  • margins mostly mostly single-coloured in red, green, blue and beige, except for f. 35a/b (gold speckled), 37b-38a (elaborately illuminated) and 42a/b (golden flowers in Mughal style, mid-17th century)
Miniatures
  • 43 miniatures and 37 calligraphic pieces

History of the object

Entstehung

Autograph

17th to 18th centuries in India (GND: 4026722-2)

  • Miniature painter
↳ Name
↳ Note on the Person
  • signature on f. 4a:
    رقم کمترینه رضا عباسی
    raqam-i kamtarīnah Riz̤ā-i ʿAbbāsī
    'drawing by the most humble Riz̤ā-i ʿAbbasī'
  • Miniature painter
↳ Name
↳ Note on the Person
  • signature on f. 11b:
    رقمه حبیب اللاه مشهدی
    rāqamahu Ḥabīb Allāh Mashhadī
    'drawn by Ḥabīb Allāh Mashhadī'
  • Calligrapher
↳ Name
↳ Note on the Person
  • signature on f. 28b:
    عبد الرحیم سترالله عیوبه
    ʿAbd al-Raḥīm / satara Allāh ʿuyūbahu
    'ʿAbd-ar-Raḥīm – may [God] forgive (cover) his faults'.
    signature on f. 35b:
    فقیرعبد الرحیم سترالله عیوبه ۹۹۲
    faqīr ʿAbd al-Raḥīm / satara Allāh ʿuyūbahu 992
    'The poor ʿAbd-ar-Raḥīm – may [God] forgive (cover) his faults 992/1584-85'.
  • Miniature painter
↳ Name
↳ Note on the Person
  • signature on f. 42a:
    عمل هاشم
    ʿamal-i Hāshim
  • Calligrapher
↳ Name
↳ Note on the Person
  • erased signature on f. 42b

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
  • 1810 (?)
  • London
  • presumably acquired from Christie's on 6 June 1810 as part of lot 80; bequeathed on Beckford's death in 1844 to his daughter Susan Euphemia
  • between 1752 and 1766
  • India
  • commissioned during his stay in India;  see the mention of Swinton on f. 45a
Provenance entry
  • Other: f. 46b:
    48 Leaves
    2 framed
    Morukkaeh
    vol. 2
    *
  • Other: flyleaf:
    top right:
    46 Leaves May 1782
    in pencil below:
    45 leaves May 1826 RB?
    46 leaves Aug. 1828 GC?

Access and usage

Institution
Shelfmark
  • I. 4589
↳ alternate
  • Old shelfmark : IC 24333
Editor
  • Weis
Status of edit
  • First input complete
Static URL
https://mymssportal.dl.uni-leipzig.de/receive/DEMUS019014Book_manuscript_00000008
MyCoRe ID
DEMUS019014Book_manuscript_00000008 (XML view)
Export
Metadata license
CC0 1.0
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